


Partner Styler

by DatLAG



Series: Souyo AU One-Shots(?) [6]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Ranger Fusion, Because we love the hanamura bros in this house, Blackouts, Brotherly Bonding, Don't mind poping out AUs left and right, Hell yes i love pokemon ranger ok, M/M, One-Shot(?), Pokedex Entries References, Pokemon, Pre-Relationship, Ranger!Yosuke, Ranger!Yu, Underwater, Yosuke Falls The Fic, no writing only ideas in this brain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23130694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DatLAG/pseuds/DatLAG
Summary: Yosuke and Yu the Pokemon Rangers and their shenanigans !
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Series: Souyo AU One-Shots(?) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1471457
Comments: 27
Kudos: 53





	1. Eggspeed

**Author's Note:**

> Ok I played a lot of Pokemon Ranger that stuff is my childhood. So.... this happened.  
> My summary sucks I know XD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke, on Staraptor back, is asigned the mission to stop a bunch of grunts stealing... something.

Yosuke soared the skies of Inaba on Staraptor back for a good hour now. Patrols were more and more peaceful, it seemed that squashing that “Magatsu” group left and right was slowly taking effect. Nonetheless…

His styler rang on his arm and he put it up to his mouth to hear Rise’s voice.

“Hey Yosuke ! I have a transmission of a little mission for you.”

Somewhat delighted to have a job on this dull day, he responded eagerly : “Oh ? I’m all ears buddy.”

She giggled. “Must have been a boring day for you hey ? Well, apparently some Magatsu grunts have been seen down the Samegawa river. Go check it out.”

He sighed. So much for squashing them. “Down the Samegawa right ? I’m on my way.”

“Good luck !” And she cut communication.

He readjusted the red scarf around his neck and patted the Staraptor. He made them take a turn towards the river.

* * *

A bunch of red wearing grunts were running down the riverbed with something in their arms. Even from so far above with his goggles on, Yosuke could tell.

He was about to dive onto them until :

“Yosuke !”

From behind he heard an all too familiar voice. The brunette turned his head to see his favorite guy in his grey ranger uniform with that oversized collar of his on an Staraptor with an Eevee on his back. Still, he was surprised.

“Yu !? What are you doing here !?”

The grey ranger chucked. “I’m on patrol too you know. Rise contacted me, Magatsu is around this area apparently so I came to help.” 

A grin forced its way on Yosuke’s face. “Welp your help is welcome partner ! Glad to see you ! I’m tempted to ask how is little Izanagi but it’s not the time for that.” The Eevee on Yu’s back cried and nodded.

Yu nodded too with confidence. “Can I let you handle those ones ? I’ll check around and stop any back up.” 

The copper ranger silently agreed with a smile. They both instantly knew what each other were thinking and Yu left to hunt for more Magatsu guys.

With a revitalized morale, he dove into the fleeing grunts. After seeing Yu he was more pumped up than ever. Since their ranger school days he always felt invincible with him around.

He already knew why though, but it didn’t matter. Saving the world first and relationships after (and not like it was going to be reciprocated anyway).

“Hey you suckers !” Yelled Yosuke as the Staraptor got close to the ground. He jumped off the Pokemon and the flying creature flew away.

“Oh crap-” One of the man in red said. They were three in a triangle formation, the one at the peak was holding something in his arms. Yosuke couldn’t tell because it seemed to be some sort of big capsule covered by a sheet. “You idiots ! Don’t just stand there ! Cover me !” the grunt yelled at his comrades.

All of them kept running followed by the copper ranger. The two other grunts took out their “Foglass” out of their pockets. The glasses were heavy and it slowed them down to manipulate them in their fingers, they eventually put them on their nose, pressed a button on the side of the contacts and the trademark “bip” rang.

Knowing what was coming next, Yosuke pulled out his styler while still running, and a bunch of controlled Woopers jumped out of the river next to them.

Yosuke’s styler bursted out and circled around one Wooper after another, or circle a bunch of them at once. Woopers are easy to catch so it wasn’t any trouble to circle them and dodge their splash of water and murk. In no time the capture was complete. And thanks to their controlled state, they instantly ran away once they were knocked out of their trance.

The glasses on their nose glitched and they threw them away cursing. “Sorry boss ! Gotta go !”

“Hey wait !” Screamed Yosuke. But the two defeated grunts were running away in different directions. One even threw himself into the river. Yosuke couldn’t go after them and he had to count on Yu to catch them. Which was basically instinct by this point.

With only one last enemy to catch, Yosuke picked up his pace further. The last grunt grabbed a Foglass out of his pocket like the others and activated it. Expecting another wild Pokemon attack, the copper teen readied himself… Only for a Doduo to jump out of a bush and give the grunt a lift, making him effectively speed ahead. 

“Oh no fair !!” Screamed Yosuke. 

The grunt snarled. “It’s more than fair ! You guys do that all the time !”

The ranger snarled back. “Yeah ! To catch idiots like you !” He then readied his Styler.

The machine bursted out and caught the Doduo in not time at all. Releasing it and it instantly shook the grunt off and ran away. The fella was pretty far away from Yosuke and he had the time to get up and run again. 

Someone yelled Yosuke’s name. The brunette ranger looked at the direction of the voice to see Yu, still on a Staraptor’s back :

“I stopped some grunts and I came to check on you ! We need to catch this guy now- there’s a cliff up ahead ! It could get dangerous !”

Yosuke nodded in his direction. And indeed, the cliff was starting to come into view.

The grunt threw away the Foglass he wore… and pulled out another pair.

“He has another one !?” Exclaimed Yosuke.

The red wearing criminal placed the lenses on his face, and around four Pidgeotto came in to attack Yu, stopping his startled Staraptor dead in its tracks. It will take time for him to catch them and calm his Pokemon, Yosuke understood he needed to finish this alone.

The cliff drew dangerously close, and so did they to it. In the end, the criminal stopped while being to the edge of the cliff, Yosuke standing at a few meters away from him, fearing he was going to use whatever he had hidden in his arms.

The ranger yelled : “Give up !”

The red grunt clenched his teeth. No one spoke for a few seconds. Then the man pulled off the sheet over the capsule and dangled it over the cliff. It was a Pokemon egg inside that capsule. “Leave me alone or it’s going to turn into a fried egg !”

Yosuke was taken aback. In the split second he asked himself what to do. He couldn’t just let him get away with the egg, but couldn’t let it crash down either.

He heard Yu yell from far away, and suddenly, a tiny tornado, probably coming from a Pokemon attack was headed towards them.

Before Yosuke could react, the wind brushed the red man.

He managed to stay on his feet, but the capsule flew out of his hand and above the cliff.

“NO !” Yosuke didn’t even think. He ran past the man and jumped arms open to catch the egg.

He leapt off the ground into the air. The copper ranger managed to catch the capsule and the egg in it in his fall, and curled up around it in a defensive manner. The Samegawa waterfall next to them drowned out the scream of the silver ranger as Yosuke fell from his view.

Teeth clenched and mind blank, the copper ranger let himself fall.

But, expecting a crash landing, instead he heard a loud pokemon cry. He never heard it before, it weirdly sounded like a jet.

Before he knew he felt something picking him up. In the brief moment, instead of feeling it being rough from the landing, it was very soft, like fluff.

The moment he opened his eyes although, he was at the edge of the cliff, safe and sound. Yu’s Staraptor practically landed on the grunt, pinning him to the ground and knocking him out while the grey teen jumped off and ran towards Yosuke. “Yosuke ! Are you ok !?”

Confused and somewhat out of it, the copper teen asked : “Y-you weren’t the one that saved me ?”

Yu shook his head. "I was trying to but… something picked you up before me.”

The brunette stared at him. “... Something ? Watcha mean something ?”

“I couldn’t see what it was… it was practically invisible somehow.”

The brunette thought for a second : “I heard a weird Pokemon cry while falling down… so I was somehow saved by a Pokemon that can make itself invisible..?” Was it a ghost type ? He wondered. But there’s not much ghost type around here, especially at this time of day.

“Probably. It was extremely fast as well… But it’s not important right now, we need to get back to HQ an-” Before he could finish his sentence and that Yosuke could agree to whatever he was going to say, the egg in the capsule… moved.

They both stopped dead in their tracks as the egg moved more and more. The brunette slightly panicked looked at Yu for support, but he was only looking deadpan. Curse you Narukami and your glorious poker face.

Yosuke pulled the egg out of the capsule for safety, the shell was surrounded by light that blinded both rangers and they shielded their eyes. When they both looked back, there was now a pokemon in Yosuke’s arms.

“That’s a Riolu.” Said Yu.

“Why thank you Captain Obvious.” Sarcasm was dripping from Yosuke’s sentence.

The fighting Pokemon yawned and looked at the human who was holding him. And in a brilliant bolt of intelligence, Yosuke said :

“Huh- hi.”

Even Yu had to hold back laughter. But seemed like the tiny fighting type Pokemon seemed pleased as he looked up the brunette with a smile.

Yosuke started petting it awkwardly, no idea of what would be the logical train of action, and he looked to his partner for help. Who started poking at the newborn Pokemon in curiosity. Et tu Narukami ?

They were interrupted by the ringing of their stylers. Yu picked up first and Rise was heard through the receiver.

“Just heard that some Magatsu guys were caught, how is the mission going ?”

Yu responded in his classic deadpan fashion. “We caught the criminals but for the egg, it’s not an egg anymore.”

“What do you- oh.” It seems the realization struck Rise at full speed. And the Riolu cried to punctuate it.

Yosuke sighed. “Huh Rise, what do I do ?” The Riolu was eager for more pats and bumped his or her (Yosuke didn’t know yet) head into his palm. The brunette gave it what it wanted with more pats.

“Well…” Rise pondered. “We don’t know where the egg came from… Well you should release it I guess.” She wasn’t completely wrong to say that. Pokemon instinctively know how to live right from being born, so releasing it wasn’t an issue.

Yosuke was still reluctant though… But looks like he didn’t have much of a choice…

He got up and gently put down the Riolu to his feet. He patted its head one more time and started to walk away. Yu silently looked at him as he walked past him, it was obvious he picked up on Yosuke’s sad undertone in his voice when he said “Let’s go.”

It wasn’t hard for him to find a Staraptor and catch it, then fly away to HQ.

Then he realized there was sensation of something somewhat heavy on his back.

What Yosuke didn’t know is that as soon as the brunette was separated from more than a few meters of the Riolu, the tiny creature ran to him and clung to his back all the way.

When Yosuke noticed it on his back, he couldn’t help but smile.

Yu next to him on his own Staraptor voiced his thoughts : “You hoped it would follow you.”

Yosuke cringed. Yes he did. He was very sure it wouldn’t happen, extremely sure in fact, but there was still that tiny insignificant hope in his heart.

Looked like both Yu and that Riolu picked up on it. He heard that Riolus can read auras of others, maybe he picked up on his sadness ? Who knows. And if it did Yosuke was very glad.

It looked like it picked up on his happiness because the tiny Pokemon was practically hugging his back.

Thinking of back, he looked at Yu’s, his Eevee was pretty quiet. It always is but it was more than usual.

“What’s up Izanagi ?” Asked Yosuke.

Yu handled the answering. “He’s not used to talking to girls.”

“... I’m not a girl.”

Unphased by Yosuke stating the obvious, he clarified : “The Riolu, it’s a girl. That’s lucky, female Riolus are very rare.”

Surprised, Yosuke looked at her(?) on his back. “How can you tell !?”

“I just can.”

After a beat where Yosuke tried to come up with some sort of explanation, he went for the most obvious one. “Yeah that’s some Yu Thing you would pull off…”

“Yu… Thing..?” The grey teen wondered.

“A weird specialty of yours like folding paper cranes, making envelopes, and reading trashy romance novels. Now I add : can tell a Pokemon’s gender onto the list, congrats fam !”

In Narukami fashion he rolled with it. “Thank you.”

They both kept flying in comfortable silence for a while, watching other bird Pokemon pass by, observing the scenery and enjoying each other’s company. The brunette couldn’t help but stare at the other’s face at times (all the time), and was often surprised when the two of them would cross stares. Hopefully it didn’t install some kind of awkward atmosphere between the two.

Yu (surprisingly) was the one to break the silence. “You should make it your partner Pokemon.”

The other looked at him, before staring at the horizon. He considered the possibility. Rangers were allowed to have partner Pokemons, but…

“H- SHE just hatched… isn’t it like… a bit early ?”

Yu, being Yu, focused on the most important part of the sentence. “Having trouble with pronouns ?”

“Yes... I mean you said it, they are usually male so- **hey** don’t change the subject !” He disliked it (not so much) when Yu managed to pull him away from the main point. That was just one of the superpowers Yu Narukami had over Yosuke Hanamura. He sighed. “She’s… young. Like young _young_. And I’ve never had a partner before…”

“What about me ?” This deadpan question made the copper teen blush as a knee-jerk reaction.

“W-wait ! I mean a partner _Pokemon_! Of course you are my partner ! What, are you jealous or something !?” He realized he maybe took it a bit far thanks to his flustered state.

But Yu made it worse by responding with a deadpan. “Maybe.”

After spitting some random syllables Yosuke just let out a grunt. 

The Riolu on his back touched the back of his neck which made a chill run down his spine. It seemed Izanagi did the same to Yu as he chuckled and rubbed the Eevee’s cheek with one of his hands.

“I’m shocked he didn’t evolve yet.” Proclaims the brunette. “He can evolve out of happiness right ? How come he’s still an Eevee, I’m sure he’s in heaven with you.”

The grey teen smiled. “Well, it doesn’t seem like he wants to evolve yet. I’ll let him choose his time.”

Yosuke just stared at his partner rubbing his own tiny partner.

After some internal debate, he slowly reached out for the fighting type Pokemon on his back with one of his hands. He was shaking, he didn’t know if it was from exhaustion or hesitation.

The Pokemon eagerly met his hand, and like Yu next to him, Yosuke rubbed her cheek gently.

To see if he was doing it right, he looked at his comrade who was staring at him. A bit taken aback from the sudden cross of stares, he was about to blurt out whatever was going in his head to lessen his embarrassment but the silver ranger spoke first :

“A name.”

Yosuke instantly understood what he meant. “Oh yeah a name… huh…” He looked at the Pokemon enjoying the warmth of his hand. He also looked at the one that was enjoying the warmth of his partner’s.

He wasn’t great at giving names, but for once he had an idea.

“Su… Susano… Susan ?” He looked at Yu for acknowledgement, the silver teen nodded in the Riolu’s direction.

She was staring straight into his eyes. And after a beat, she jumped right as his face.

“AH ! NO ! NOT WHILE I’M DRIVING ! **SUSAN !** ”

Yu next to him laughed. Yosuke would have probably enjoyed the sound more if he wasn’t trying to get his newly acquired partner under control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A riolu egg eh ? Does this reminds you of anything ? A certain game eeehhhh..?  
> For those who expected a froakie, my apologies I'll give him one if i ever manage to make it a full AU. Hey Ranger's can have multiple pokemon partners ! Also feel free to think of Yu's Eevee as being shiny or not.  
> Yeeaaaah I'm not really subtle with the evil team, and hey if you can control pokemon with gloves and computers you can with glasses ! I even made a metaphor on how it works ! And for those who wondered why in the fuck is there a waterfall in Inaba, Inaba's not the same. It's not a town but a region here ! Yep yep !
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed whatever this was !


	2. Sharp Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke (and reinforcements) is tasked to calm down a Pokemon going berserk underwater. The copper ranger will have to face one of his biggest fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look I made more XD  
> I just liked the idea a lot and this was created. I hope those who wanted more content of this are happy !

Yosuke looked down into the deep ocean. Or what he could barely make out from him bending over the water from the boat. The captain got out of his cabin and said they were at the right spot, the ranger nodded.

The brunette turned around to face Susan, his Riolu, and murmured some words of encouragement. “I’ll be back ok ? Don’t worry.” He caressed her head with a smile. She nodded with a sad undertone. She was still young, getting separated even for a short time would made her worry way too much.

He made a sign to the captain as he took out his Micro Aqualung, placed it on his mouth, and put his goggles on his nose, tight against his face. He then jumped into the sea water.

The new pressure of water on him was a bit of a shock to the system, and the sudden cold made him shiver. Hopefully the warm fiber of his ranger clothes will correct that temperature change quickly. He took a deep breath thanks to the device on his mouth and nose and looked around the blue colored environment.

“Daaaamn…” He couldn’t help but say. The blue and green color was coupled with the corals and the pokemon around. Corsolas… Finneons… He could swear he saw a Feebas and obviously some Magikarps.

He was snapped out of his amazed state by the beeping of his styler. Sure enough it was Rise.

“Ok so I detect that you’re under, so your objective is simple. Find the berserk Pokemon and calm it down.”

From his Aqualung, his voice sounded distorted. “Sure.”

“Oh, before I hang up…” Yosuke’s senses could tell that she was slowly forming a smile. “I called some reinforcements.”

Genuinely confused, the brunette raised an eyebrow. “Huh… why ?”

“Well the Pokemon did quite the damage, it’s better safe than sorry !” He could tell she was lying.

“What are you planning Rise ?”

She giggled. “Oh nothing…”

He cringed “Nothing my ass !” There was no response. “Rise ? Dammit she cut the comm off !”

Knowing Rise, he could guess what she had in mind… and who this “reinforcement” could be. He slightly flushed. She didn’t  _ need  _ to do that.

He slapped his cheek lightly to focus. He looked around and started swimming, observing his surroundings for any traces of the berserk Pokemon.

Some silhouettes of bigger Pokemon passed above him, Tentacruels, Lumineons, packs of Remoraids… He thought it might be a smart decision to get ready for potential issues, and decided to capture some Pokemon.

For his first underwater capture after a  _ long _ time, he caught a Gorebyss and one of said Remoraids. Their attacks were a bit harder to handle, since they were moving the water around them, but Yosuke still found it manageable

He noticed some broken corals left and right, it slowly started to form a trail. Corsolas were nursing their hiding place while some Mantines passed by. Recalling the possibility of maybe passing above a deep underwater cliff, he caught one of said Mantines just in case.

And in all honesty, he wasn’t against company at the moment, as some Pokemon silhouette started bringing back bad memories.

He snapped himself out of it, it was  _ years _ ago. The time where he couldn’t even recite his time tables. He was  _ fine. _

Or so he told himself as he dug deeper and deeper into the trail of broken boulders and corals.

The trail eventually led him to what looked like an underwater cave. The side of the caves were scratched, the rocks next to it were also damaged. Something was definitely inside.

Yosuke gulped. He had a  _ horrible _ feeling about this.

Even so, he swallowed his saliva and pushed on inside.

It was too dark at first. He pulled out for a bit and performed a capture on a Chinchou before pushing in again. It was clearer, and he could see what looked like signs of struggle inside. Like something was pushed against the walls, there was still the trademark scratches on the sides, and that didn’t reassure him in the slightest.

But it was when he could  _ hear _ the scratches that it got especially bad.

Something was screeching against a rock, making high pitched noises. He was tempted to put on his “Special-Anti-Sound-Everything-Proof Headphones” to drown the noise, but without it he wouldn’t be able to tell if he was getting closer. He swam around a corner carefully to try and peek at what he thought was the source of the sound.

Nothing. The Chinchou light wasn’t enough to see far inside, and the scratching stopped.

Getting a horrible gut feeling, he swam backwards and looked around for the source of whatever was making that sound.

He felt something quickly swim around him in the dark, and it wasn’t one of the Pokemon he caught, there was sound following the creature that was circling around him. A sharp sound. The scratching begun again, it seemed like what was surrounding him was still screeching against the sides of the cave.

The tension was making him want to scream. He snapped his neck from one direction to another, before he felt a terrible chill down his spine from behind him.

He turned to look in a snap, and he saw a red glow in the dark. The red glow became two red lights, drawing closer.

Before Yosuke could swim away, what was pursuing him finally came into the Chinchou’s light.

A mouth. Riddled with an  _ army _ of sharp teeth.

Something inside the copper ranger snapped. He turned around and swam as fast as he could. He was terrified. He was trying not to be but that gut wrenching fear was not allowing him to fight back.

He was so disappointed at himself. Here he thought he got over it.

He panted through the Aqualung until he was out of the cave, trying to catch his breath. A Pokemon cry echoed through the entrance, and the pursuer made his true entrance into the light of day.

Two glowing red eyes, a giant aileron on top and bottom, dark blue head and white bottom, a yellow cross on its face and a massive mouth full of sharp teeth. A Sharpedo.

Once again Yosuke didn’t even think as he swam away in instinctive terror. He heard it from behind him, it was catching up. In his panicked state, it didn’t even come to him to use the currents to pick up speed. But he still managed to get accidently caught up in one, one that threw right into a rock.

He hit the wall at full speed, but it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. By the time he recovered from the shock, the fanged Pokemon was before him, almost right up to his face.

Bad memories flashed before his eyes as it got disgustingly close. The brunette was too terrified to move, and could only stare as tears slowly formed inside his goggles.

The Sharpedo was almost touching his face, he could see his face reflect on its tooth. The Sharpedo’s nose nudged up and down, as if he was sniffing the cornered ranger. Some kind of instinct told him he was going to die. This instinct was surely exaggerating, but in his state he didn’t have enough sanity to tell the difference. He was too scared of the possibility of reliving the same pain.

“Yosuke !” He heard from somewhere in a distorted familiar voice. A styler came flying from one side close to the Dark and Water type Pokemon. The Sharpedo in a knee jerk reaction, bit into it, causing what looked like some heavy damage.

He heard a grunt from behind the Pokemon. Said Pokemon swam away in the cave’s direction, leaving Yosuke behind. Sure enough, as the brunette guessed earlier, Yu was here.

The silver ranger swam to his frightened partner followed by some other Pokemons, a Corsola, a Luvdisc, and even a Relicanth. He placed his hands on the shoulder of his friend, there was intense worry in his eyes behind his grey goggles. “Are you ok ? What happened ?”

Yosuke was trying not to sob and cry, it would really suck if his goggles were filled with salty water. So he put on his big boy pants and clung to Yu like a lifeline.

This took aback the grey teen who swallowed a surprised noise. But he reciprocated the contact by rubbing his friend’s back in reassurance. Yosuke took a deep breath to compose himself and slightly pushed Yu away so he could look at him in the eyes.

“Sorry…” He could only muster to say that at the moment.

Yu shook his head. “Don’t be. I wasn’t there during everything but even I could tell it was frightening.”

The brunette nodded so hard it could have given him whiplash. He then explained the events to his comrade, from the cave to here. Yu wore a pensive expression.

With a hesitant tone, he asked : “Yosuke… do you… want me to handle this ?”

The brunette raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean ?”

“You were terrified. If dealing with a Sharpedo scares you so much, I could take c-”

Before Yu could finish the brunette already knew his answer. “No ! No I want to deal with this !”

His friend threw him a wondering look. Giving Yosuke the signal for an explanation.

“Well… I never told you this but… I was bitten by a Carvanha as a kid. It left its tooth in my skin, I had an operation to take it out, it left a scar and all that…” Yu cringed. Carvanhas lived in tropical water, and would attack anyone wondering into their territory. Their jaws have the reputation of being able  _ to sink a ship _ . The experience must’ve been extremely painful. “And since I’m scared of Pokemon with giant toothy mouths ! What a glorious fear eh ?” Yosuke punctuated the sentence with a laugh.

“It’s not funny.” Deadpanned Yu. “I can’t even imagine how painful it must’ve been, it’s not something you should make fun of. You have the right to be scared.”

Yosuke looked down. “But… I wanna get over it ! It’s just- as soon as I saw it I got so scared I could only run !” He groaned. “I’m tired of being a coward ! I’ll face that sucker head on next time !”

Understanding his resolve, Yu nodded. “I’m coming with you, just in case.”

“Yeah please do. If I run away again slap me in the face.” He said it jokingly but…

“Sure.” With Yu’s deadpan tone, he didn’t know if he took it seriously or not. Yosuke might regret asking him to do that.

“Ok… Well let’s go back to that cave.”

They both swam towards the said cave, following the broken rocks and other sea creations.

“I noticed something.” Said Yu. “That Sharpedo is missing fangs.”

The brunette’s eyes widened. “Wait- really ?”

The silver teen nodded. “When it bit my styler, it did less damage than I expected. And it was brief, but I think some of the places where his teeth are supposed to be are empty.”

Yosuke took his hand to his headphones. He was probably too scared to notice the missing fangs. Did some of its teeth fall off ? He didn’t know if Sharpedo teeth could grow back. He assumed it did, since those Pokemon  _ needed _ their giant jaws to live.

Thinking of their jaws made him shudder a bit.

Then, he had an idea of what might be the issue.

“Say Yu…” The silver teen’s attention snapped back to him. “Was he missing just one or two teeth, or  _ a lot _ of it ?”

Mirroring Yosuke’s pensive look, he took his hand to his chin. “Now that I think about it… Indeed there was a  _ lot _ missing.”

Wow Yosuke must’ve been even more scared than he thought if he didn’t notice  _ that _ .

The copper ranger announced his theory : “If Sharpedos grow their fangs back, which I think they do, having so much teeth missing isn’t normal. Something happened to it like… ripping off a ton of teeth at once or something, and its missing teeth are causing it pain. And it's even more painful because of the fangs growing again.”

“The pain must’ve driven it mad, Sharpedos have really tough skin, the markings and scratching must’ve been it hitting the walls in confusion.” Announced Yu.

Yosuke now felt bad for it. “Still, it’s weird how it… chased me down. I mean Sharpedos circle preys or aggressors and I didn’t do anything to it !”

“Maybe it took you for an enemy in its confusion. Sharpedos are very defensive of their territory as well. Or he might consider humans as hostile creatures-”

Yosuke interrupted him. “Wait.” An idea just presented itself in the back of his mind. But he needed to confirm something.

He pulled out his styler and called Rise. She asked “Oh Yosuke-senpai !” He could hear her smirk from here. “So did you like the surpri-”

He cut her off with a flushed face. “That’s not important right now ! I heard you said there were reports of Magatsu here not long ago right ?”

He could hear her press some buttons. “Well… yes. The higher ups thought the berserk Pokemon might have been their fault.”

Yosuke cringed. Yu asked : “Do you think..?”

The brunette nodded. “I think Magatsu ripped out its teeth, either to sell them or make stuff out of them.”

Yu pondered. “This would explain where their funds come from. As well as the Slowpoke tail incident.”

To try and ease the tense atmosphere, Yosuke jested : “Taking a page out of the real old Team Rocket eh ?”

He heard some more “button pressing” through the styler. “This would explain the weird reports we received… Where Pokemon wouldn’t be stolen, but have “parts” missing, like the Slowpoke’s tails and Appletun’s backs…”

“Damn…” Murmured Yosuke. That’s stooping  _ really _ low.

A large Pokemon cry was heard from afar. They recognized it as the Sharpedo’s.

“Sorry Rise, gotta go.”

“Good luck !” She said before Yosuke hung up.

With silent understanding, the two partners swam in the howl’s direction followed by their Pokemons.

Sure enough, they found the Pokemon in a labyrinth of rocks and strong currents. As the currents pushed it around it would hit hard against the walls, disrupting the Pokemons around.

Yu spoke up. “We need to capture it.” His eyes shot around the vicinity. “Sharpedos are extremely fast, we wouldn’t be able to catch it under normal circumstances. But if we use the currents to pick up speed and stick it in a corner, we will have a chance.”

Yosuke sighed. “Better than the bait strategy.”

They both nodded to each other and got to work.

The ridiculous currents were hard to get a grasp of at first, but slowly and surely, they picked up their respective speeds on both sides.

Zigzags in between current to current, avoiding crashing into the walls was paying off, and Yosuke could finally see the Sharpedo come into view. Yosuke was just behind in a long current corridor behind the Pokemon.

Just a little closer…

The massive Dark Type crashed into a wall to the side, which made the brunette fly past him thanks to the currents. In his shock, he didn’t turn properly and crashed into the wall at the far end of the labyrinth of rocks.

“OW !” He couldn’t help but yelp. Because of his messed up reception, he landed with his butt against the wall. He stretched his back and rubbed his rear in pain. “O-ow… I think my ass got a new crack…” After looking behind him at the wall to witness the potential damage he made to the local environment...

He practically had a cardiac arrest when he looked back to the current he just took to notice the Sharpedo charging in his direction.

He screamed and dodge to the side into another current as the brutal creature smashed straight into the wall Yosuke previously collided into.

The fact that a 80+Kg monster with Rough Skin and a  _ giant toothy jaw _ that can go as far as 120Km.h almost crashed into him made him want to piss himself.

The brunette didn’t even think as he swam into the next current, praying the creature wasn’t going to follow him.

That prayer was unanswered.

He let out a drowned scream behind his Aqualung : “ **PARTNER HEEEEEELP !!!** ”

He didn’t care if it was girly or if he became a damsel in distress once again, there’s a giant fish Pokemon with a Crunch attack ready to be used swimming after him. Screw manliness he wasn’t going to become a chew toy today.

So much for being above bait strategy.

After endless moments of swimming around, too worried for his existence to look into what Yu could be possibly doing, he finally started to reach the end of his lungs. His stamina was one of the few things he was confident in, but seems like the fear was finally making a dent in it. They needed to capture that Sharpedo  _ somehow _ before he wasn’t able to move his legs and arms anymore.

He passed around a corner, and noticed a boulder standing on edge of another, right above the rocky corridors of current they were taking. If he had a Pokemon push it…

He had an idea. He reached for his styler and contacted Yu.

“Partner !”

“Yosuke, wh-”

He interrupted him. “No time ! Catch a Pokemon with a Tackle Field Move ! I’ll say around huh two ! Of power two !”

Yu per nature, didn’t make a fuss out of it and responded with “Got it.” before he hung up.

Yosuke stalled for time by circling the area around the said rock until Yu finished.

The brunette received another call.

“I caught a Horsea for the job. What’s the plan ?”

“There’s a rock on the edge of the current. Make it fall  _ right after _ I pass beneath it, we’ll make it fall onto the Sharpedo to stun it. It has thick skin, it’ll be fine, just don’t mess up the timing !”

“Understood.” Damn Yu sounded so cool with his serious voice. (A half lie, Yu sounded cool all the time but especially with his serious voice.)

He trusted that his partner would drop the boulder at a nothing but perfect timing. With this confidence, he did one more circle, turned around the fateful corner and…

There was a crashing sound, Yosuke slowed down the best he could to look behind him.

The Sharpedo was stunted and the pushed rock was slowly falling down next to it, damaged.

“Now’s our chance !” Yelled Yu.

And they both said at the same time : “I’ll catch it !”

Both of their stylers jumped out of their hands. And they were so in sync they didn’t even notice.

Their stylers ended up at the same starting point, their lines drawing a single trail of light, expanding from each side of the line to circle the Pokemon. Once they noticed, they didn’t bother asking each other questions, but instead continued their capture, together.

Without even needing a Poke Assist or taking a hit, the stunted Sharpedo was captured in a short amount of time. But it was mostly thanks to its stunted state, it would have been way more difficult if it could move.

The capture was finished, and it seemed everyone involved has calmed down (minus Yu who is always calm). Yosuke, still scared, slowly swam his way towards the exhausted Water Pokemon, Yu following his mouvement.

With a trembling hand, heavy in the water, the copper ranger tried and reached out for the Sharpedo. The Pokemon moved slightly, scaring the brunette off, but the silver ranger patted his comrade on the back in encouragement.

Taking said encouragement, Yosuke swallowed up his saliva and watched the tears he previously shed bounce inside his goggles.

He took a deep breath through his Aqualung and touched the yellow cross sign on the Pokemon’s head.

Just like his talent said, it had a rough skin. But apparently when it was carressed in the right way it was soft.

Yep it was.

“It seems he calmed down.” Said Yu.

Yosuke turned to him. “He ? Oh right you can always tell those things…”

“Yosuke.” Said his partner to bring about the other ranger’s attention.

“Yeah ?” The copper ranger turned to him.

And then he got slapped in the face. Pretty weakly thanks to the water, but still.

“DUDE !?” Exclaimed the shocked teen with a hand on his cheek.

With an incredulous look, the silver teen said. “You said I should slap you if you ran away.”

“I mean I didn’t- I should’ve known you would take it seriously…” Yosuke sighed, his skin flushed where Yu’s hand at made contact. It was maybe weak but it still stung though. Yu is way too strong for his own good.

“We should treat it and report.” Said the silver teen.

The brunette nodded. “Yeah.”

As they looked over the Dark type’s slowly growing missing teeth and damaged fins, the brunette didn’t notice the Pokemon sniffing curiously at him. 

* * *

Tired, Yosuke faceplanted onto his bed. He finally got to go home and crash in his bed.

Living without his parents kinda sucked since he had to do the dinner himself, but at least he wasn’t lonely thanks to…

“Yosuke !” His blond brother barged into the room. “I heard you fought against your greatest fear !”

_ Oh god _ he thought. Rise must’ve told him. Yosuke had no idea when did he become such good friends with their navigator and how he learned to use voicemails but Teddie managed those feets.

Teddie faked wiping a tear out of his eye. “I’m so proud… Ever since that day we couldn’t even watch the Sharp Attack movie together !”

Yosuke sighed. “It’s not because it was made by Pokewood that it’s good !”

“You know in your heart of hearts that it is !”

The brunette snarled. “I only liked it because I was a kid ! I’m sure if I rewatch it now I’ll see all of the problems in it !”

The blond kid pouted. “You say that but you never even watched it since !”

Well, Yosuke would hate to say it out loud but…

“You’re… right.”

Teddie took a moment to respond. Yosuke couldn’t see his face, so he didn’t know the young bear Pokemon expert was happily shocked at Yosuke’s response. He smiled : “Of course I’m right ! The Mighty Teddie is  _ always _ right.”

Yosuke snarked. “So that one time you said the Fighting type is super effective against the Psychic type you were right ?”

Unsurprisingly, he took a  _ while _ to respond to that.

“It was a simple error of judgement !” He pouted.

The brunette chuckled. “And here I thought The Mighty Teddie could never make mistakes…”

The kid made an angry noise while hitting the ground with his foot. “You meanie !” The chuckles turned into laughter, which seemed to have flustered Teddie more. “You should be more grateful ! And here I was making something out of the tooth for you…”

This picked Yosuke’s curiosity. “Tooth ? What tooth ?”

Teddie, oblivious, took a proud pose and explained. “Yes !  _ That _ tooth they took out of you that day ! Mom thought I was creepy but I insisted on keeping it !”

Silence reigned for a few seconds before getting brutally interrupted by Yosuke’s shock.

“You kept **WHAT** **!?** ”

The sudden raising of Yosuke’s voice made Teddie back pedal. “W-well I was little and I thought… it was pretty and-”

Yosuke let his anger speak instead of his reason for a few seconds. “That  _ thing _ was  **inside** my skin ! Doctors had to take it out before it started internal bleeding ! This isn’t a toy or some pretty trinket to play around with !”

The youngest looked at the ground in shame with watery eyes.

The brunette realised his sudden outburst and walked up to his sibling. “Sorry I shouldn’t have yelled- I… Sorry Teddie I went a bit far…”

The blond boy shook his head. “I… I get it…”

Trying to make up for the scare, but being awkward at it, he pulled his sibling into a hug. And pat his head. “I-It’s alright now ok ?” To try and ease the atmosphere, he jumped onto another subject. “L-let’s go make dinner ! Are you hungry ?”

Teddie nodded in his arms.

“Then let’s go ! I’ll make you your favorite ok ?” He let go of him and started walking towards the door while still keeping his eyes on his sibling.

Teddie turned around and followed Yosuke out. “A-are you gonna make dessert ?”

Yosuke smirked. “Yep. Yu’s recipe with tons of sugar.”

The blond kid gasped and smiled. “Yay !”

* * *

Teddie was asleep in Yosuke’s arms as the teen struggled to lift him upstairs to his room.

The brunette put him down on his bed. He was already in his pajamas so Yosuke just lifted the blankets and covered him.

The copper teen sighed. At least he made up for the yelling, and it seemed he managed to cheer Teddie up and exhaust him enough for him to go to sleep without making a fuss.

Yosuke turned towards the door when he noticed a bunch of stuff on Teddie’s desk. He walked closer to it in curiosity.

And here it is. The fang.

Yosuke swallowed. He then with a subtle but fast paced step left the room for his own. He changed, took a shower and went to sleep.

But surprisingly, what he was thinking of wasn’t the fear of seeing that sharp piece of bone again;

It was how much work Teddie must have put into making that thing with that tooth. With the number of tools he had it seemed he really spent a lot of time and effort into it.

The brunette ended up drifting to sleep with a proud and grateful feeling.

* * *

“Ok Kingdras, you take care of those rocks please !” He said to the 5 Water and Dragon type Pokemon with him.

The said Kingdras circled the pile of rocks that was trapping the massive Wailord. The poor gigantic Pokemon was under a massive reef when it crumbled onto him. Sadly, Yosuke couldn’t calm it down, being way too big to capture. So he could only free it and pray it wasn’t angry. Good thing Wailords were calm and peaceful creatures. Usually.

All of the Dragon type threw all they had at the boulders and rubble, Dragon Pulses, Hydropumps and the like.

The blast was stronger than what Yosuke thought, and he ended up being slightly blasted away, causing him to roll backwards a few meters.

“Oh shoot !” He said when he noticed that something fell out of his pocket.

He swam back to his original spot and quickly caught the slowly falling object. He let out a reassured sign before looking in his hand.

It was the tooth Teddie had transformed into a pendant, now part of a necklace. Yosuke didn’t really feel comfortable wearing it so soon, but still kept it on his person.

He shoved it back in his pocket and saw the results of his hard work as the Kingdras swam away.

There was still a rock left, stuck in one of the Wailord blowholes.

“Oh man…” The brunette swam to the ridiculously gigantic Pokemon. Landing on top of it to touch the rock still stuck. “Oof, I’m gonna need a powerful Crush for that…”

The Wailord beneath him cried. A massive rumble swayed the ranger off his feet. Feeling a big storm coming, he crawled away from the blowholes.

It was a good call, a massive current erupted from the free hole. It must’ve tried to use Water Sprout to free himself. But the rock was still stuck.

Even if it could still barely breathe thanks to the still free blowhole, it was still in pain and probably very sad. The copper ranger patted the giant creature. “Don’t worry I’ll get it off, just wait a little longer.”

The Pokemon let out a saddened cry. Yosuke gaved it a few reassuring pats before swimming away in search of a Pokemon with a powerful Crush Field Move.

Worried about the Wailord’s air, he hurried his swimming. He knew that Wailords could hold their breaths to dive as deep as 3000m, but better safe than sorry. And the quicker it’s done, in less pain it will be.

The brunette heard a rough howl in the vicinity.

Lucky for him, he recognized the cry of a Sharpedo. Those Pokemon had a powerful Crunch attack to take care of obstacles, perfect.

Although there was still a slight chill under his skin from the idea of running into one.

He turned around with a sigh, only to have the second cardiac arrest of the week when he noticed a Sharpedo rushing in his direction at full speed.

He outright screamed and was about to start swimming away when the feeling of Yu’s slap came back onto his cheek. And weirdly, the Dark-Type Pokemon slowed down.

Before Yosuke could start to hyperventilating, the Sharpedo nuzzled against his chest while sniffing. Then the fear was exchanged with confusion.

The brunette swallowed, and took a better look at the Pokemon sniffing at his chest.

“Oh it’s you !” The brunette crouched down, or what is the closest to it in mid water, and he actually peeked inside the Pokemon’s mouth. With surprisingly no fear. “Hey ! You have tiny teeth now ! Well that was fast !”

The familiar Sharpedo seemed happy at the remark. Yosuke was so absorbed in the nice reunion that he ignored the primal fear inside his belly. Heck, he was tempted to rub his ailerons.

But Yosuke turned back his serious mode. “Hey buddy, I need your help. Wanna help me crush some rocks ?”

The Pokemon seemed to nod, his red eyes bounced inside his black socket in the mouvement. Thanks to this agreement, the capture went smoothly with no trouble at all. The Pokemon didn’t even move and let itself be captured.

With that done, they started to swim back to the wailord. But the Sharpedo went in front of Yosuke and didn’t move.

“Huh yeah ?” Wondered Yosuke. The Dark type seems to be moving the aileron on his head. “What ?” In curiosity, the brunette grabbed the said aileron.

And as soon as he grabbed the Pokemon zoomed away dragging the now screaming ranger with him.

The copper teen grabbed onto the Sharpedo tighter as it went towards the Wailord in a flash.

After the quick travel and after Yosuke got over the dizziness of the speed, he landed onto the Wailord and pointed at the obstacle blocking his blowhole. “See that ? That’s what we gotta get rid of. After you buddy !” He bowed to the Sharpedo. The Dark type moved to the rock and bit into it.

Cracks quickly appeared on the boulder on the spots the Sharpedo sunk his tiny fangs in. Yosuke could see he was having trouble, which made sense, but he was putting some real effort into shattering the piece of reef rubble. The brunette borderline wanted to start cheering. Actually that’s exactly what he did.

“Come on ! You can do it buddy !”

He had no idea if it was effective, but eventually, the cracks spread more and more, and the boulder was shattered to pieces as it was crushed under the Sharpedo’s jaw.

“Woohoo ! Nice !” He exclaimed out of joy. He crouched down and pat the Wailord’s back. “Feeling better buddy ?”

The Wailord howled in response, a happy howl. And it slowly started moving. Before Yosuke even knew he was at the surface, sitting on the Wailord’s back as it swam.

He was a bit confused as he took his Aqualung and goggles off. He wondered if the Wailord was just going back to its place after that.

Yosuke heard a right boat next to him. He looked over to the said boat…

There was a silent beat as both ranger stared at each other. One surprised and one deadpan.

“The hell are you doing here !?” Almost yelled Yosuke.

Yu only shrugged, wearing his same deadpan expression.

“Oh yeah-” Yosuke shrugged, imitating the silver ranger’s previous mouvement. “-My ass !”

“I was just going to the other side for a task.” The silver teen said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Dumbfounded, Yosuke almost yelled once again : “Then why didn’t you capture a Staraptor !?”

After a beat, Yu just said : “Didn’t feel like it.”

The brunette sighed hard.

Yu, completely ignoring the weird fact of Yosuke ridding a massive Wailord, then noticed something as he looked in the water. “Oh. It’s that Sharpedo.”

Surprised, Yosuke looked the the side. Indeed, that Sharpedo was  _ still _ following him. “Well that’s weird… I used his Field Move and he’s still here ?”

“Huh.” Exhaled Yu. “Something fell out of your pocket by the way.”

Mirroring Yu, he also exhaled “Huh ?” but in a different tone. He looked to the side to see the fang pendant next to him. “Oh crap again !?” He picked it up in a hurry.

Yu raised an eyebrow. “Oh. This is what Rise was talking about. Teddie’s creation.”

“Do you guys have an information network or something !? And why am I not a part of it !?”

The Sharpedo in between the Wailord and boat cried and jumped out of the water for a few seconds.

This picked Yosuke’s curiosity. “What’s up buddy ?”

“His teeth seems to be growing back.” Remarked the silver teen. “Except for one.”

The copper teen raised an eyebrow. “Huh ? Really ? You can tell ?”

“Yeah, on his lower jaw.” He pointed to the swimming Dark type. The brunette crawled and bent over to get a closer look.

The water was pretty clear, so even with the movement he could still somewhat see even if it was hard to tell.

“Holy crap you’re right… Why isn’t it growing ?”

Yu took some moments to think. “There is rare cases of Pokemons losing a tooth, and evolving before it grew back.”

After a beat. Yosuke asked : “And then it just doesn’t grow back afterwards ?”

The silver ranger agreed. “It’s rare, but it can happen.”

Yosuke’s eyes wandered to the side as the dots slowly connected and he wondered…

There was no way.

No way.

Even so…

Yosuke pulled out the pendant out of his pocket and bent over the sea to look at the Dark type Pokemon.

He dangled the necklace over the water. “Hey is this… huh… Yours ?”

The answer was quick as the Sharpedo made a cry of agreement.

The grey ranger voiced Yosuke’s thought. “Looks like it.”

After a beat where Yosuke was crushed by the realization, Yu said something out of the blue like he always does. “You should make him your partner Pokemon.”

And instead of asking the obvious Yosuke said instead : “I can do that !?”

“Yeah. You can have multiple partners. Even underwater ones.”

The brunette was surprised, but in a good way. “I can really do that ? Awesome !” A question popped out of nowhere in his head. And as the impulsive teen that he is, he said it out loud. “Do you have an underwater partner ?”

After a few seconds, Yu pointed to the water in between the boat and Wailord.

And surprise, a Luvdisc jumped out and splashed back into the water.

“It kept following me. So why not ?”

A silence followed for a bit, only escorted by the sound of the wind, water being pushed as the Wailord and boat advanced and the running of said boat’s motor. And muffled cry of the Wailord.

Yosuke, dumbfounded, wondered : “I thought you were more of a Huntail or Seadra kinda person. Why a Luvdisc…?”

It was followed by another silence.

The silver ranger followed his earlier subject. “I really think you should take that Sharpedo as a partner.”

The brunette was almost tempted to hit the ground but realized he was still sitting on a Wailord. “Why are you changing the subject !?”

Yu continued like his partner didn’t say anything. “He looks like he wants to be your partner.” And he pointed to the said Pokemon.

Yosuke followed his finger and it looked like he was right. The Pokemon let out an agreeing howl.

After a few incomprehensible syllables he blurted out in confusion, Yosuke collected his thoughts finally said : “Well I’m not against it… anymore at least, a few days ago I would’ve pissed myself but... Are you sure ?” He asked the Sharpedo.” I mean… I have your  _ fang, _ and I dropped a  _ boulder _ on you…”

The sharp Water type still seemed to be happy. Maybe it understood the circumstances ? Heck, maybe it wanted to apologize for back then ?

With an embarrassed laugh, Yosuke shrugged. “Well… Welcome aboard ! Oh yeah I should come up with a nickname…”

He thought up for a few seconds. Something fitting…

An idea suddenly popped in his head.

“Brave ? I mean you bit into that boulder even though your teeth didn’t grew out yet that’s pretty brave ! And you endured all of that stuff back then too…”

The Sharpedo seemed pleased and cried happily.

“Brave it is then !” Another thought popped into his head, and he decided to roll with it. “Oh- I know what to do !”

He took off his drenched ranger coat, exposing his wet shirt sticking to his toned chest (which unbeknownst to him made Yu stare very intently), and put the fanged necklace around his neck. 

He played with it for a few seconds before looking at his newly acquired comrade. “It’s like we’re completing each other or something !” He laughed at his own cheesy line. He turned to his silver best friend. “Hey partner ! What do you think ?”

It took a second for Yu to come back from drool land and back to earth. “It looks good.” Yosuke didn’t know it but it was a massive understatement from Yu’s perspective.

The brunette chuckled. “Thanks !” Once again unbeknownst to him, his silver partner really appreciated the sound of his laugh. “Welp. Mission Complete ! Wanna strike the ranger pose with me ?” He asked while getting up with a smile.

Yu silently nodded while Brave howled.

The Mission Complete jingle echoed from his Styler, he flipped his hair while taking his pose with Yu and their two partner Pokemons while the fanged necklace jiggled on his chest, all of it punctuated by the Wailord expelling water from his now free blowholes, making a rainbow. He decided he was going to watch that Sharp Attack movie with Teddie when he’ll finally get home. Just to give it a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WANTED AN UNDERWATER PARTNER SO BAD IN THE GAMES ALRIGHT ????  
> Yes I called the Sharpedo Brave because Brave Blade. Yep. Also ya know how Yosuke wears a necklace in his epilogue design ? Well i thought of giving him one because of that ! ~~And i also thought it would look hot~~ And i thought of giving Yu a luvdisc just because he's a gay disaster. Also nice hanamura bros moments  
> I hope you liked it even tho it took me so long to make !


	3. Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our two rangers spies on a bunch of Magatsu goons on the beach. New meetings and an unexpected guest makes its appearances with a new friend !

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mamamia  
> here i go again  
> Nah seriously i'm having fun with this, sorry it took a long time to make even thought it's so short XD

Hiding behind some rocks being licked by the shore, Yosuke, Yu, and their partner Pokemons Susan the Riolu and Izanagi the Eevee (and even if they didn’t notice, Brave the Sharpedo and Ishtar the Luvdisc were watching from the sea) were observing a bunch of men in red.

Silently, they were spying on them and their conversation.

“Did you guys found it yet !?” Yelled an admin looking man to the rest of his goons. It was easy to see he was an admin, his costume bore more traces of black than the other men and was more complex looking. Wearing something that looked like a mini cape.

One of said goons peeked his head out of the water, with something looking like an Aqualung on his face. “Nothing yet sir !”

The admin groaned. “Keep searching ! And you over there !” The rangers squint their eyes to see who he was talking to. It seems to be a grunt slacking off, said grunt seemed to have a Greninja under his control. “Get to work too !”

The guy in red sighed. “Come on… I’m supposed to stand on watch…”

Looked like it wasn’t the right answer for his superior. “Who cares about that !? Get your ass here and search !”

The grunt sighed. And pulled out a mask looking Aqualung.

“Why do I feel like I’m watching a cartoon…?” Murmured Yosuke. Susan on his shoulder was staring pretty intently at the men and he was scratching her neck to her help loosen up.

Yu was simply watching with his Eevee, as calm as each other. “They do look like the villains from Nanako’s favorite show.”

The brunette snorted. “Call me up next time you watch it with her !”

“Sure.” He said with a smile.

“Anyways…” Yosuke turned on his serious mode. “They seem to be searching for something underwater, it’s not really going well. And I’m not complaining.”

Yu explained. “There are rumors of underwater ruins on this coast. It might be it.”

Yosuke wondered. “Ruins..? Isn’t there reports of suspicious people around ruins all over the region ?”

His partner nodded. “Indeed. The higher ups already had suspicions it was them.”

“Welp, guess we have our proof now. Well let’s-” Yosuke was getting up ready to run and capture, but Yu caught him by the arm.

“Not yet. I want to see if there is anything interesting before we intervene.”

On cue, the Greninja that was controlled started moving weirdly. Walking in circles and almost colliding with a few walls.

The admin yelled at the ocean. “Hey slacker ! Hand over control !” He tweaked with his glasses as the Greninja acted weirder and weirder.

A head poked out of the water and said. “Whatever you say.” And the man dove back in.

The admin kept tweaking with the device as the Greninja started to writhe in uncomfortable ways.

Greninjas were either standing with their eyes closed calmly when not in a combat situation, or eyes open and ready to run and shuriken. The poor creature kept switching between those two stances like a machine.

The brunette noticed the grip on his arm lightened. That Yu was giving him the OK to intervene. Both of them were tired of watching that poor Pokemon suffer under their influences.

And so, the both of them rushed in with a “Hey !”

All of the goons looks shot to them with a few of them exclaiming something along the lines of “Crap, Rangers !”

The admin immediately rallied of of his men and yelled “Don’t just stand there ! Get out of the water and stop them !” On his call, the red guys jumped out of the ocean and pressed the buttons on the sides on their Foglasses.

All four of them, Yu, Yosuke and their Pokemon Partners got ready for a fight. Both human partners took some distance from each other to have space for the captures.

A good bunch of Shellders threw themselves out of the water right to the silver ranger. Izanagi headbutted one of them mid flight, stunning it for Yu to capture it.

Another threw Magikarps at Yosuke. They were easy to catch, but them always using Splash would make them bounce and leap out of the Styler’s lign, or even collide with it. The fight was more annoying than hard. Hopefully, Susan’s punched and kicked to rally the fish Pokemons inside the circles of light, making the copper teen’s life way easier.

The capture was done with no damage at all. The red criminal’s glasses were busted thanks to the successful captures.

Some of the men panicked and said “sorry boss !” before running away.

Yu got his capture done as well. He had his calm but determined expression, shared by Izanagi, staring daggers in the faces of their enemies.

“You bunch of idiots !” Yelled the admin. “They’re top rangers of course they are going to take care of weakling Pokemons ! You gotta bring out the big guns !” At the declaration, the rangers and their partners got ready for a second volley.

The superior member gestured to the men in red left. Quickly, all of them grouped in the sea, forming some type of circle in the water. They clicked on their glasses and a torrent started forming in the circle the formed.

It wasn’t long before a Pokemon jumped out, a Gyarados. It appeared and flew towards the beach with a pained cry. Yu looked at Yosuke with his “I got this” look.” It doesn’t show on his face but Yosuke could tell. He could always tell. Yu ran towards the berserk Flying type with his Eevee ready to rock. Meanwhile, Yosuke focused his attention on the admin. 

Said admin snarled. “Well while your buddy takes care of that, I’m gonna use the ace up my sleeve !”

The poor Greninja from earlier uncomfortably made its way towards them. The copper ranger couldn’t help but cringe at the display. The superior black and red man laughed. “But wait ! There’s more !”

He then tweaked with his glasses even more. Yosuke never saw a Magatsu grunt do that before and was taken aback. The more and more he tweaked, the more and more the Pokemon looked in pain.

“Hey ! Stop that !” Yelled Yosuke. “Can’t you see it’s suffering !?”

The criminal laughed. “Who cares ! Now let’s show you our new toy- Foglass Awakened Mode !”

On cue, a bip was heard, which the Greninja responded by being engulfed by a blue shine and having its form slowly modified.

In a short amount of time, the Greninja took a different appearance, it had red and black spikes looking things on its head, and a blue shuriken on its back.

“The hell !?” Exclaimed the confused brunette.

The admin laughed. “That’s Greninja’s Synergy mode ! It’s normally locked by some bonding friendship crap, but thanks to this baby-” He poked at the glasses. “Controlling Pokemon forms is as easy as crushing rangers like you !”

Outraged, the copper ranger yelled : “That absolutely cannot be healthy !” He regained some composure as he cracked an insult. “And if it was as easy as you say, you probably just got arthritis from playing with your toy !”

“Shut up !” Screamed the criminal. “We’ll see if you’ll keep laughing after this !” The criminal toyed with his glasses again. And the Greninja practically flew in Yosuke’s direction.

Surprised, Yosuke stepped back with a “WOW !” as the Dark type Pokemon suddenly appeared before him. Before he could even take out his Styler, a Water Shuriken was already close to his face.

Susan threw herself in between the projectile and her ranger, and blocked the attack with a Force Palm. The impact made her flew back in Yosuke’s arms.

As he checked that she was ok, he screeched : “Are you insane !? That could have killed me !”

The man in red didn’t care. “Well that’ll teach you for being such a pain !”

The brunette click his tongue and took a wide step back before finally pulling out his Styler.

This fight was going to be long and arduous.

The Greninja would break the line every seconds. Just drawing one circle was a pain.

The progress was slow, Susan helped out with her Poke Assist which made the capture barely more tolerable. He had to find more and more exploits and occasions to draw his capture circles. In between it charging an attack and finishing his move, which only made the possibility of getting damages more dangerous.

Dark Pulses, Water Shurikens, Hydropumps, the works. It was terrifically fast and did ungodly amount of damage. Yosuke’s Styler quickly reached the orange level of danger.

He clenched his teeth. He wasn’t going to lose now. He wasn’t going to let that poor Pokemon get controlled any longer, nor disappoint neither Yu or Susan who were right there.

He evaluated the situation.

It was fast and brutal, but it seemed he was still making big progress with each capture circle.

He had to pause to get the tells right in his mind. The Greninja would bring its paws in a ninja position to its face when preparing a Dark Pulse, it would bring them closer together horizontally for a Water Shuriken. It seemed that letting the Styler charge at a distance behind the Pokemon could be safer than being too close. Susan could also place some attacks during Hydropumps, since the attack was long in its execution.

He thought about his partner still up against the Gyarados. Maybe they were thinking in the same manner ? But knowing Yu he probably had everything under control right off the start.

He was kinda jealous, but he knew that for a long time. He just had to better himself to be just as good and make Yu proud.

The image Yu saying he trusts him fully with a task was all of the encouragement he needed. As well as the will to not let it be a fantasy.

He was going to take full advantage of Susan’s Poke Assist as a Fighting type, super effective against Greninja, without pushing her too much.

Even though the fight might be dragging for long thanks to the broken lines and the feelings of friendship dissipating over time… He’ll get there. Little by little.

He mustn’t get discouraged. He’ll keep calm and everything will be fine.

With this mentally, he smiled and focused on the task at hand.

Instead of worrying, he decided to found some fun. Figuring out a technique to dodge an attack and watching it pay off, placing a charge and progressing, no need to rush.

Before he knew it, the Greninja was enveloped by soft blue light and calmed down.

“... Huh ? Wait- already ?” A few minutes ago the expression “Already ?” was just some type of wish. Here he thought it would drag forever, it seemed time flew by as he was having fun.

The men in red appeared shocked. “W- “Already” !? How could you-”

“I’m done too.” Declared the silver ranger while walking behind Yosuke.

The copper ranger turned around with a smile. “Nice ! Did you had some trouble ? I expected you to finish sooner.”

His partner smiled. “It was tougher than it looked. Took me some time to get my head around it.”

Yosuke paused for a second.  _ Just like me huh ? _ But that thought brought him a smile. “Yeah I get how that feels !” He replied with a grin.

“Good job out there Yosuke.”

“Huh ?”

With a bigger smile, he continued. “I couldn’t help but watching out of the corner of my eye. That was a good capture.”

The copper ranger couldn’t help but blush. “Aw~ Come on you’re embarrassing me ! I had some trouble to and you did great too !”

Yu chuckled.

The admin yelled : “Hey lovebirds ! You really think it’s gonna be enough ? Guess again !”

Before Yosuke could get flustered and scream over the lovebirds comment, the grunt jumped into the water.

“Hey !” Both rangers ran towards the water and started to pull out their Aqualungs.

For their surprise, they felt a shock from their feet. The ground shock and a torrent appeared in the water.

It was  _ so much _ bigger than the one the Magatsu guys made to summon that Gyarados.

“Oh crap.” Whispered Yosuke, feeling a storm coming. A high pitched Pokemon cry resonated from under the water as the torrent became stronger, the admin in the sea was practically immobilized.

A hand grabbed Yosuke’s wrist. “Yosuke we need to take cover ! Now !” Ordered the silver teen.

But before they could run, a white silhouette emerged from the sea, and before they knew it, a stupidly strong silver wind covered the environment. Yu protectively grabbed his partner to shield him as their partner Pokemon took cover behind them.

They were persuaded the wind was going to blow them away.

As sand and water flew around in a white tornado, the brunette managed to weakly open his eyes, watching at the scenery in front of him as his comrade protectively held him.

There were four silhouettes. The giant white one was hidden behind the winds it created and was indiscernible.

Three were in front of the group, erecting what looked like a Protect attack. One of them he recognized was the Greninja he just captured in its normal form, holding a ninja pose while trembling. The two other silhouettes on both sides of the Dark type Pokemon were red and blue. They weren’t touching the ground and seemed to be levitating, they had long straight wings without any feathers, similar to the wings of a plane with long white colored necks that looked like they were covered in fur. They seemed to hold out clawed paws to help erect the Protect barrier along with the Greninja. They looked to be very powerful. Yosuke couldn’t quite make out what they were nor if he saw them before, but the red one gave him feelings of familiarity.

Sand flew in his eyes and he was forced to close them as he hung to Yu like a lifeline.

The tornado eventually calmed. And when they both opened their eyes, the white, red and blue silhouette were gone. Only leaving a devastated environment, and the Greninja whose Protect was fading away.

Said Greninja fell down to its knees and collapsed, seemingly exhausted from putting the barrier. Yosuke gently pushed Yu away from him and looked around to check the safety of Susan and Izanagi which were hanging on to their clothes. He then rushed to the exhausted Dark type, it didn't seem to be injured.

Yu was looking at the shore where the giant white Pokemon appeared. Meanwhile Yosuke was tending the collapsed Pokemon, he wondered.

“It must’ve been a Legendary…” Murmured Yu.

“Legendary ? Like- an  _ actual _ Legendary Pokemon !?” Asked the copper teen in wonder.

Yu nodded. “Its power was far above one of a normal Pokemon. And even if I couldn’t clearly see it… I could feel it.”

Yosuke looked down. Brushed some sand off the Water creature as he wondered as well. “I felt that power too… But hey- did you see the two other Pokemon ? The red and blue one ?”

“I did.” Yu looked around. “But barely.” He brought fingers to his chin. “The blue one… felt familiar…”

The brunette stared wide eyed. “Oh crap really !? I honestly thought the red one was more familiar… Did you like, see it before or something ?”

“Maybe… I remember getting saved one time by something like a blue blur…”

Keeping inside the need to make a bad reference, the brunette pondered. “That’s… very weird. Do we have some guardian angels or something ? Well I ain’t gonna complain !” He laughed the end of the sentence. He stopped his laugh abruptly after a realization. “Wait- where’s the Magatsu guy ?”

Yu looked deadpan at his friend and pointed behind him with his thumb. The copper ranger followed his finger, to find the grunt hanging from a rock of a cliff above the beach by his clothes, completely knocked out and wet to the brim. Yosuke awkwardly chuckled. He really didn’t want to mess with this Legendary. Guess they will have to take him down there eventually.

This reminded him of something.

“Er… Partner ?” He asked shyly.

Yu kept staring at him with his deadpan look. “Yes ?”

“Back there…” Embarrassed, he started playing with the cord of his headphones. “Thanks for shielding me” He looked away to the Pokemon next to him and pat its back. “And thanks Greninja too”

His silver partner flashed him a smile. “Don’t thank me. He deserves all of the praise compared to me.”

“But you still tried and that what counts ! And…” He was about to say a stupidly sappy line but screw it. “Having you there reassured me. So still, thank you partner.” He flashed him an embarrassed grin that Yu returned.

Yosuke didn’t know that, but he wasn’t the only one feeling very warm inside at that moment.

As Yosuke was looking at his comrade, something poked at his cheek. He slightly scooted away in shock only to notice it was the Greninja’s nose. The brunette caressed  _ his _ (if he believed Yu’s judgement which he obviously did) head. “Thanks buddy. If it weren’t for you and the two others I dunno what would’ve happened.” Susan jumped in Yosuke’s arms for some cuddles as well, and Izanagi did the same to Yu, they both delivered on the demands as the Greninja snuggled up to Yosuke.

It seemed Susan was telling something to the Dark type Pokemon. The Greninja nodded before snuggling to Yosuke more. The brunette instantly knew what’s up, thanks to the two previous occurrences.

The copper ranger awkwardly laughed. “I know what that stands for… W-well welcome to the team I guess !” He chuckled awkwardly before pondering. “Let’s see a good name…” After a few seconds of thinking, he snapped his fingers. “Jiraya ! Sounds good ?” The Pokemon let out a pleased cry that Yosuke took as a yes.

“You are making a lot of partners those times around. I’m worried about my post.” Said Yu in a stoic voice as he pat his Eevee.

Yosuke, too busy cuddling his Pokemon friends didn’t notice how sappy his next line was. “Come on you’ll be my partner forever, don’t you know that ?”

The brunette didn’t notice but Yu definitely flushed ear to ear upon hearing that. He covered the lower half of his face with his hand to compose himself, as he replayed and registered Yosuke’s warm words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for it being short ! I'm sure most of you recognize some Pokemons wink wink nudge nudge i love my pokemon mythos oki  
> And here's Jiraya nice eh ? And i'm trying to create the plot too even though i'm awful at it eheh  
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed !


	4. Spark in The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke was supposed to be in civil, but blackouts don't agree. Also, a surprise waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit here we go again (my summaries still sucks)  
> Because of work this coming out was very much slowed down, I don't really know what to say except here !  
> also i just noticed three of my chapter names start with an S  
> huh

Yosuke faceplanted onto his bed after a long day of “rangering” around. Susan jumped on his back and settled down to take a nap.

He was honestly about to join her in sleepland but someone barged into the room.

“Yosukeeeee~ !” Here it is. That long drawn out last syllable that was Teddie’s trademark. He could hear the light footsteps of Jiraya behind him. “Welcome home ! When do we eat ?”

Yosuke groaned. “That’s the first thing you ask ? I’m tired Teddie, let me rest for a bit…”

He could just  _ feel _ Teddie pout. “What you had a rough day ? If you eat you’ll feel better afterwards !”

“Yeah maybe…” He had to admit he  _ was _ hungry, and it was pretty late. He slightly got up, Susan seemed to jump off on the ground. “I’m gonna check the fridge.”

“No need, I just did !” Exclaimed Teddie proudly.

“And..?”

“There’s nothing left !”

There was a big silence for a bit before Yosuke sighed  _ loudly. _

“Of freaking course…” He got fully up and Susan proceeded to jump back onto the bed, where Yosuke was and crawled into a ball to sleep. “Welp someone wants to crash. Wanna go with me Jiraya ?” The Dark type nodded. “Ok ! I’m gonna change out of my uniform and I’ll buy some stuff, ok Ted ?”

The bear Pokemon lover let out a “Yay !” before turning around. “I’ll tell Kintoki ! Woohoo !” He jumped away and ran towards his Stufful. Yosuke sighed with a smile as he watched his brother go. He proceeded to take a shower and change into his civilian clothes. His usual white coat, still keeping his unbreakable phones, his orange shirt and green pants with his pricey boots. He still plans on getting a motorcycle to go with it, but probably only in a few years.

“Welp, let’s go buddy.” He said to Jiraya as he opened the door. With eyes seemingly closed, the Greninja walked behind silently.

“I mean seriously- Teddie could try making dinner once in a while ! Actually- forget it he’s awful at it, I’m calling it now. Can’t be worse than Yukiko or Chie but-” Yosuke kept ranting about his day to his partner Pokemon as they walked down the street, who didn’t seem to be bothered by it. “-can at  _ least _ help me go buy some stuff. W-well I won’t force him though, he has stuff to take care of too, but a little help would be nice once in a while you know ?” He turned around to look at his creature comrade, the Dark type was wearing the same expression he always did. He just opened his mouth, revealing the origin of his scarf, to let out a gentle noise. No idea if he agreed or not on what Yosuke what saying, but it made the brunette smile nonetheless.

They finally arrived to Yosuke’s most loved and hated department store, Junes. He didn’t know if he should sigh of anguish or familiarity. His dad was pretty salty when Yosuke told him he won’t pick up the store after him and will work to be a ranger, but that bitterness eventually washed away as Teddie followed him for his own goals of becoming a caretaker Pokemon. In the end the memories of Junes were bittersweet, bitter were the memories of name calling of “Junes Prince”, sweet were the memories with hard work paying off and goofing off with Teddie.

Pokemon out of their Pokeballs were authorized, only one per client though and not too big. Greninja passed easily, and with his ranger badge in his pocket he was pretty confident. He strolled with his Water type friend across the aisles. He stumbled across a few different Pokemons with their owner, an Absol with another teen, a M.Mime with a parent and their kid, a growlithe with a man (probably a police officer off duty), and here he was. A brunette ranger off work with his Greninja.

He ended up enjoying watching the pairs of trios of people with their Pokemons. Going aisle to aisle without picking up anything just to watch, a Durant, a Petilil, a Zangoose, an Eevee-

Wait-  **he knows this Eevee** .

He ran back to the aisle where he noticed the Normal type Pokemon, and he crossed stares for a few seconds with the fellow silver teen he just couldn’t (and didn’t want to) get away from.

“Hi.” Said Yu stoic.

A smile formed on Yosuke’s face. “Hey partner you sneaky Ekans ! What are you doing here ?”

He smiled back. “Noticed I was nearly out of ingredients to make something.”

The brunette raised an eyebrow. “Oh ? What kind of something ?”

The copper teen noticed Yu’s eyes flee slightly to the side for a split second. “Just the usual meal.”

Yosuke wasn’t dumb, he knew his tells. “Yeah sure !” He said playfully, knowing that it wasn’t the truth. “So~ Watcha need ?”

The silver teen turned his eyes to the shelves. “Some sugar.”

“Sugar eh ?”

“Yeah, for Nanako. Izanagi likes sugar too.” And there was the tell again. Although Yosuke was less sure it was a lie and more of a half truth.

“Oh, is Nanako going to visit again ? You planned on inviting me at least right ?” He fist bumped Yu’s shoulder lightly.

“Of course. Do I need to get more sugar for your future coffees ?”

The brunette tapped his hand on his back. “Hey I’m tough, I take my coffees with no sugar !”

Yu raised an eyebrow with a grin. “Are you sure ?”

Yosuke stayed silent for a few seconds before whispering : “Well a  _ little bit _ of sugar.”

They both let out a chuckle. Yosuke felt some mouvements behind him to notice Izanagi and Jiraya seemingly having a conversation as well with body language and tiny cries. He couldn’t tell what they were talking about of course, but the glances to him and Yu and back to the conversation were more than suspicious. Maybe  _ they _ were the sneaky Ekans here.Oh well. Yosuke watched Yu staring at the shelves. “Having a tough time choosing ?” 

Yu just nodded.

The copper ranger let out a light laugh. “So uptight about even food. Do you want to become a pro housewife ?”

He didn’t expect Yu to eye him (with a look that would strike as suggestive to anyone not as oblivious as Yosuke) and murmur : “Maybe.”

As half of the not so subtle undertone flew over Yosuke’s head he couldn’t help but blush, just out of surprise. The smooth, low and gentle voice of his partner entering his ears was enough for him to react this way.

He was about to blabb some nonsensical syllables out of embarrassment when his view suddenly became dark.

Not just his view, everything went dark.

“Blackout !?” Yelled Yosuke. A blue light shined on, what he believed was Yu’s wrist. “Wow. You  _ still _ have your Styler in civil !?”

He held up the machine, which made the light nicely reflect on his face and hair. “I don’t feel safe anymore without it.”

Yosuke chuckled. “Welp guess what ?” Yu shot him a curious look, then Yosuke lifted his own wrist. “You’re not the only one.” He grinned with his own Styler on his arm shining a blue light, that also nicely stroke his bangs and face with an azur color.

They then proceeded with the… well procedure during blackouts. Pulled out their Ranger badges and grouping people and their Pokemon in one place to avoid getting lost in the dark. The Dark types and Ghost types would often guide their trainers through the dark, and the Electric types of the group would make some light.

Although that didn’t meant there wasn’t trouble. Some Pokemon rounded  _ really _ didn’t get along. A Heatmor and a Durant started a fight that Yu volunteered to calm down, while Yosuke calmed some panicked Pokemons and a duo of Zangoose and Seviper.

He would make rounds around the place to search for people alone or lost Pokemons, but he was interrupted by a woman grabbing his sleeve.

“E-excuse me- You’re a ranger right ?” She sounded worried.

Yosuke nodded with confidence. “Yeah, what’s the problem ?”

The woman swallowed. “My Swirlix disappeared- I was following the others and the second he was out of sight-”

To avoid her getting too worried over her own words, he interrupted her. “I understand. Just stay with the group and I’ll bring him back.”

The woman sat down with worry just dripping from her. Yosuke reached for his Styler as he started walking away to alert Yu of the lost Pokemon. He activated the call but before he could start talking he was once again interrupted.

“Hey !” He heard a man say behind him. The brunette turned around to find a middle aged man followed by a Growlithe. Like Yosuke thought before, he was a policeman off duty which was obvious thanks to his now present cop badge on his vest. “You should round up kid, let the adults handle it.”

Yosuke sighed. “Mister I’m a ranger.” He showed off his styler and badge. “I’m just doing my job.” He started walking away again as he tries to talk to his Styler once again.

The man grabbed Yosuke by the shoulder. “Kid, I don’t care if you’re a ranger or not you-”

Now _ that _ offended the copper teen. “Excuse me !? Can you let me do my job !? There’s a lost Pokemon here ! I need to go and calm it down-”

The policeman’s hand moved from his shoulder to his shirt to pull him up. Yosuke almost lost balance at the sudden violent movement. “Do you really think I’ll trust a child to do a job !? A  _ ranger _ nonetheless !? You guys barely hold those Magatsu assholes off !”

Yosuke could only guess that guy had some kind of tragic backstory where a Magatsu grunt had done something to him/family/friends and rangers did an awful job to solve it and blablabla. “Look I dunno what happened but I just want t-”

The guy didn’t let him finish. “Just sit down kid and let the adults handl-”

And to continue the interruption train, the hand of the policeman was grabbed by Yu, he shaked it so Yosuke could be freed. Yu kept his hand on the arm and calmly said. “I would let the adults handle it, but responsible ones instead of those who attack children.” He then pushed the man away. “Do your own job and let us do ours like a responsible adult please.” He then tapped Yosuke’s shoulder and dragged him away from the man.

After a bit of walking the brunette whispered a “Thanks…”

The silver teen nodded. “No problem.” Yosuke felt the hand on his back slightly caress him before getting off.

The copper ranger smiled. “Welp, now we gotta find a lost Swirlix.”

“Swirlix are found of, to put it lightly, of sugar and sweets, lets both check the different aisles of desserts.”

They both nodded and ran off in different directions, Yu towards the frozen sweets aisle while Yosuke ran to the snacks aisle.

Knowing where everything is thanks to his days of working part-time (and just being in this same aisle like, 15 minutes ago with Yu earlier) he found the aisle in no time.

Lucky for him, the Swirlix was right there, head deep into a sugar bag, putting white powder everywhere, ruining the floor in the process. Yosuke sighed and made quick work of the capture. With the Swirlix completely distracted by his food it was barely a capture, in no time the Fairy type was running towards Yosuke. The brunette then proceeded to go back to the group while calling Yu to tell him about the problem solved.

The woman was enchanted to see her Pokemon back, ran towards said Pokemon and hugged it (ew… Swirlixes have a sticky fur…), and thanked Yosuke profoundly. He brushed it off and walked to Yu, who had also got back.

“I noticed something Yosuke.” He pointed towards a dark passage at a far end. Yosuke knew it was the employee only room. “Something went towards there.”

“Something ?”

“It was dark, but it did light noises. Probably a tiny Pokemon.”

They nodded to each other and walked towards the said room, the blue lights of their styler guiding them, followed by their partner Pokemons. Izanagi was trotting behind Yu, while Jiraya, in the dark, his element, jumped from the top of aisles to other aisles following the teens’s direction.

The employee only door needed a key card to open, but thanks to the blackout a simple push was all it needed. With some walking downstairs, both rangers hoped that once at the control breaker, they could maybe re-establish current. They could have done that earlier of course, but rounding off people for their safety and make sure all Pokemons are alright is priority.

Before pushing the final door to the breaker room, they heard  _ a lot _ of little noises. They sounded like electricity crackling and tiny paw noises, similar to bug Pokemon. Both rangers looked at each other in silence, reading their expressions, both of them were ready. One quick look to their partners behind them, and they opened the door.

It was Joltiks. A  **lot** of Joltiks.  **Everywhere** .

Stuck in pipes and cables, absorbing electricity making little noises, either with cries or crackles of sparks. It would have been a nightmare for anyone terrified of bugs. Being Electric and Bug types, Jiraya wasn’t too hype about entering.  _ No one _ was hype about entering, no matter how cute Joltiks were. There was a limit to cuteness, and bugs that can zap.

Joltiks suck electricity, either from power outlets or from the static electricity of people or other Pokemon.  _ Why was there  _ **_so many_ ** _ here !? _ He asked himself. Surely employees would have noticed the Pokemons, unless they were slacking off and the Pokemon would hide… Even if they were in stupidly huge numbers, a Joltik is still barely 10cm, barely 4 inches. There is plenty of space to hide.

But aside from employees slacking off from checking the electricity (definitely going to tell his dad about it),  _ why are the Pokemons here in the first place ? _ He wondered. Joltiks lives in cities, but having so many in the same place makes no sense.

“We need to release them out.” Said Yu. “Let’s catch them all at once.”

Yosuke made a dumbfounded face. “What !? There’s way to much for a one shot capture !”

The silver ranger grinned. “Let’s use the double lign trick.”

Yosuke immediately understood what he was talking about. They did it before on Brave a while ago when he went berserk, and pulled it off again in some mission they were cooperating on. They usually used it to boost the power of the circles, but Yu did notice it also extended the length of the lign.

Without asking any question, Yosuke shot out his Styler and moved it slightly to let Yu connect to it.

Too bad both lines were blue, it was a bit hard to see which one belonged to who. Maybe he could ask for a new lign color, apparently it's a thing to be able to modify it. He completely forgot to check it out, he should do that once home.

Anyways, his and Yu’s lign circled the pack of Pokemons, following the walls right to the corners. The Stylers were now about to touch, they looked at each other one more time before closing the circle.

Both closed their eyes in anticipation for the massive blue lights about to emerge from every side. It was a good call, since the one circle was enough to catch the army of miniscule Pokemon, they were all engulfed in soft blue light for a few seconds, before the azure glow disappeared and the good old electronic lights came back on. Probably because the Joltiks stopped pumping electricity after the capture.

Yosuke sighed. “Looks like the situation is back under control. With the lights back on, people can leave.” He turned to Yu after finishing his sentence.

Yu looked deadpan and stayed silent for a few seconds, before pointing behind Yosuke. Which prompted Yosuke to turn around.

All of the Joltiks were looking at Yosuke.  **All of them.**

A trickle of sweat ran down the brunette’s neck (Yu found that more attractive than expected in this context) as he looked at the see the army of yellow and blue dots looking at him with twice the eyes for each individual.

And then the dots started jumping, Yosuke had what could be called an attack for a second. The numerous Bug types jumped up and down like a bunch of bouncing balls a child would accidently send flying, all in the direction of the one and only copper ranger.

Within a few seconds, he was on the ground immobilized by an army of Joltiks crawling on his body. It’s not that it was painful or anything, more like  _ extremely _ ticklish.

This threw Yosuke into a laughing fit so bad he couldn’t even speak.

Izanagi, Jiraya and Yu could only watch as Yosuke slowly died of tickling.

* * *

The Joltiks were sent out of the store and the customers were evacuated. Yosuke sent a phone call to his father about the situation and he sounded rightfully angry at his employees before thanking Yosuke for solving the situation and hung up.

He called Rise and told her about the situation, and most importantly the weird gathering of Joltiks in the store. They theorized that the population must’ve moved away from their natural habitat because of some event that HQ decided to look into. The brunette didn’t know what happened to those Electric types for them to migrate en masse but it had to be big.

Once outside the store, Yosuke realized something.

He didn’t buy anything to eat and it was probably super late.

Shit.

He pulled out his phone and checked the time, yep already passed midnight. He called Teddie in a hurry to apologize for the trouble he probably caused.

“Y-yeah Ted ? Huh sorry I couldn’t… well stuff happened and-”

His brother almost yelled on the other line. “That’s not important ! Ya gotta go to sensei’s house !”

Confused, Yosuke asked : “Huh ? Why ?”

He could just  _ feel _ Teddie shake. “We had a little schedule problem for something so you just have to arrive now !”

This sounded terribly suspicious. Right after the incident and the Joltiks were released Yu went back home in a hurry saying he had something to finish. Because of how many things Yosuke talked about on the phone with Rise and his dad, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was hours ago.

Seems like his perception of time was getting messier and messier as he was tired.

He decided to follow Teddie’s directions and crawled to Yu’s house, Jiraya behind him sometimes almost helping him up.

Yosuke was  _ really _ tired. And the back of his head felt heavier than usual for some reason.

He finally arrived at Yu’s doorstep. With a numb hand he reached out for the door, knocked and signalled that Teddie sent him here and that he was entering, and slid it off to the side.

He was expecting a greeting from Yu or a loud exclamation from Teddie.

He didn’t expect confettis flying in his face as his bunch of friends yelled “Surprise !” in glee.

Extremely confused, he stared into nothingness as he analyzed the face of all his comrades. Yu was here, Teddie too,  _ Rise _ was here, Yukiko, Chie, Kanji, Naoto, and heck Nanako was here too.

This only deepened his confusion even more. “Wh-what ?”

Chie stepped forward. “Come on you big doofus we throw a party for you and that’s how you react ?”

“Party ? Party for what ?”

Kanji of all people in the back yelled : “Your birthday ! What else could it be ?”

“My..?” He pulled out his phone again.

Yep July 22 definitely his birthday.

He felt  _ extremely dumb _ for not noticing that earlier when he explicitly looked at his phone.

Naoto walked forward. “We were supposed to prepare everything in your house with Teddie’s help while you were away and celebrate when you came back, but because of the incident we had to move it here.”

Yosuke raised an eyebrow. “Why do you need to  _ change house _ because of that ?”

Naoto tried to search for her words while tipping her hat. “Well… how should we put this…”

Yukiko then spoke up. “Teddie’s decorations were awful.” She punctuated bluntly. He could just see the words stab his brother on the side. “So we all moved here in a hurry to decorate again and help Yu-kun out with the cake.”

Nanako exclaimed : “Yeah ! I got to taste it, it’s super good !”

Rise stated the obvious. “Well he did it, so of course it was going to be good !”

Yosuke sighed. “We all knew that Rise. And aren’t you supposed to be at HQ ?”

She puffed her cheeks. “I got a day off ! And don’t worry I did send that communication to HQ earlier ! I do my job right !”

Teddie and Nanako pushed Yosuke in as each of them went in the kitchen to bring out the cake.

* * *

It was around 5AM now, practically everyone left aside from Teddie and Nanako that were sleeping, the former in the guest room and the latter in their own.

Yosuke’s tummy was full, Yu’s cake was godly as expected, and receiving each gift ended up tiring him a lot as he pulled off the packing of each one.

Rise gave him a bunch of exclusive disks; Kanji knit him a Riolu, a Sharpedo and a Greninja doll that he was definitely going to show to his other partner Pokemons later (as Jiraya was asleep as well); Naoto gave him some practical books to help him in his on his own lifestyle with his brother and DVDs of a crime series they used to watch together; Chie offered a new pair of boots for his ranger work,  _ really _ tough boots that will definitely come in handy in some areas; Yukiko gave a bunch of coupons for vacations at her inn, which was also going to come in handy for breathers; Teddie gave him new goggles that he made himself, with a thinner frame, it was no less sturdy and the others thought it fit his face better than the other ones (from Yu’s perspective it was an understatement); Nanako followed Teddie’s trend and made him a bracelet (that he wore immediately) that he was going to treasure until the end of his days;

And finally, Yu said he wanted to give Yosuke his gift while they were alone. This obviously embarrassed Yosuke but he quickly stopped his brain from getting the wrong idea.

Now that they were indeed alone, he was expecting the said gift. Although while he plummeted onto the sofa, he felt something on the back of his head… bounce in the motion. He reached for whatever it was behind his head and-

Oh  **no way.**

That fur, those paws, that capacity of hanging on people without noticing…

“Oh you finally noticed ?” Said Yu cleaning some plates in the back. “You had it on you all along, but I prefered to let it dawn on you by yourself instead of telling you. I’m glad the others played along as well.”

Yosuke was absolutely dumbfounded.

“There was a Joltik hanging out on my head  **the whole time** and you didn’t tell me !?” Indeed the Bug Pokemon just stuck silently to Yosuke.

“Well it’s not like he’s causing any harm. Just let him there, I have something to give you.” Yu left the kitchen for his room leaving Yosuke behind. The brunette was too exhausted to deal with the Joltik right now so he just let it there, and it’s not like he was bothering anyone anyway (and less static electricity was welcome).

Yu came back with a big box with holes in it, this raised a few suspicions on the copper teen’s part. The silver teen then knelt down in front of Yosuke and placed the box on the ground.

He looked down at the said box. “So, I thought for a while about what I should give you. In the end I didn’t know what exactly could make you happy…”

Yosuke was too tired to notice how corny his next line was (which seemed to be a theme those times around). “Dude… you could give me freaking toilet paper and I’ll  _ still _ be super happy.”

He was also too tired to notice the blush and grin that forced his way on Yu’s face as he hid it with his hand.

After Yu calmed his racing heart and put down his hand he continued. “So, I searched for what to get you that would make you happy, then I remembered the smile you had everytime you would get a new partner…”

A thought dawn on the back of Yosuke’s head (aside from the Joltik).

_ No way. _

Yu quietly reached out for the lid of the box and pulled it off;

revealing what looked like an Eevee inside.

“When Izanagi was born there was another egg with him. This one took a lot longer to hatch but it did recently, and I thought…” The silver teen’s gaze flew to the side in slight embarrassment.

It’s only after glancing back that he noticed that Yosuke started crying. “D-dude- this is- the best gift ever man !” Yosuke had no words to describe how honored he felt. The Normal type looking straight at him with a smile and jumping on his thighs to lay down and crawl into a ball made him clutch his chest.

* * *

He cried happy tears for a while as he decided to name  _ her _ (another rare female) Garula. Exhausted, he fell asleep on the sofa and the silver teen carried him to a futon in Yu’s room. The Joltik jumped off to sleep on the side of the bed, so did the newly named Garula, and Jiraya, who was awakened by Yosuke’s crying, quickly joined.

After settling him down, Yu found himself kneeling by Yosuke’s side while watching him softly breathe in and out, tear stains beneath his eyes and bangs in the way.

Yu reached out for Yosuke’s face, he hesitated for a second, until the brunette’s words about being happy with whatever he would have given him came to mind. So he brushed off some bangs off his eyes. He hesitated once again before moving, but the words echoed again and he decided that giving in to some pulsion couldn’t hurt.

He kissed some tears off his partner’s cheek before going to sleep himself, a lovestruck grin stuck on his face all the while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you guys want fluff here's fluff have some fluff want some more fluff on your fluff here more fluff  
> Inspired of me forgetting my own birthday vgberkhgvjl i decided to have buddy Yosuke have some fluffy time with everyone  
> Also I hope you guys liked the joltiks (gonna call the one that stuck around Zio for obvious reasons)  
> Also forshadowing for stuff ooooooh  
> I hope you enjoyed !


	5. The Hardest Will Be The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke has for mission to search for the moss rock nescesary for evolution, and he suspects that Magatsu is once again behind it all.  
> But he forgot that the higher you ascend the tougher the fall will be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY ITS BEEN SO LONG BHDFVBDJK  
> i had A LOT on my plate with a personal project im working on, and motivation left m y corpse without coming back  
> But here is something!  
> Also i wanna give a massive shout out to Egg_Yoke_Mun for making this piece https://www.instagram.com/p/B-fYjhQH8dt/  
> i can't express how happy it made me thank you! AND GO CHECK IT OUT

Yosuke peeked in between some trees. It seemed he was getting closer to the objective, and it was pretty clear thanks to the wide number of Eevees and Leafeons running around panicked, angry or saddened.

The mossy rock Eevees used to evolve in the local forest disappeared all of a sudden, Magatsu was suspected for its disappearance. This had for consequences that all of the Eevee and Eeveelutions of the forest basically went crazy, attacking other Pokemons and just acting out of their nature overhaul. Yosuke was sent to remedy the situation and maybe find where did the mossy rock went, and calm Pokemons along the way.

It sounded easy, it absolutely wasn’t.

The Pokemons were so enraged just making them go back to a more normal state took minutes on end. Their sudden violent nature made them more like walking obstacles instead of potential captures. Dodging them do get quicker to the objective was a better way to get to the objective. That didn’t stop Yosuke from having around 3 Eevees and a Leafeon on his side after capturing them, along Susan, and… that Joltik.

The Bug Pokemon decided to stick around _all the time._ He would get off when Yosuke got home, but as soon as Yosuke left his house he would stick to his back or his head, no matter what the brunette tried. He doesn’t even know if he could be considered a partner Pokemon. And well he couldn’t get him off of him, so might as well say he wasn’t so Yosuke wouldn’t get in trouble. Rise decided to play along at HQ, so it seemed that having him around wouldn’t cause problems, so might as well let him hang around.

Also, he would recharge the Styler slightly once in a while once he absorbed enough static from Yosuke’s hair and clothes, and the copper ranger wasn’t going to spit on that. Yu was also determined on calling him Zio, so he pretty much adopted the name.

Hopefully that overly affectionate Joltik won’t try to keep on sticking to his head once it evolved into a Galvantula. When that happens Yosuke’ll officially take him in as a partner Pokemon.

Yosuke dashed through some bushes once some Eevee left, thanks to the rekted trees and environment he knew he was close to where the green rock was. He also came across more and more Leafeons, he ducked down into some bushes to watch the sudden reunion of Plant Pokemons, and he noticed a circle of dirt free of trees in the distance. He crawled to it slowly (he would have been pissed ruining his boots in the dirt like this, but thanks to Chie, his pair was tougher than ever now), and once close enough, he noticed some type of hole in the middle. The hole wasn’t very deep, but the amount of moss around made it easy to understand what was there before.

Some Eevees and Leafeons were digging and sniffing in the hole, maybe trying to figure out where the rock went with their scent. Although they seemed to struggle as they’re sniffing seems to take them nowhere.

Yosuke looked better into the hole, there were some weird marks as well, straight longer marks going from the deepest point to outside of the hole, it reminded him of the grip of game cranes he played with Teddie at the arcade.

If the Eevees and Leafeons couldn’t trace the scent… did Magatsu pulled off a literal game crane operation and lifted the rock with a grip on a helicopter ? With their crazy antics there’s a good possibility that they indeed did that.

Although… how can Yosuke track it down ?

He sat down in the dirt to think. Susan jumped on his thighs for pets, that he obviously delivered while thinking (petting a Pokemon calm one’s nerves if he were to believe Naoto, and it showed to be true), and he tried searching in his heads for a lign of action.

If they transported it thanks to an helicopter or something along those lines that could fly and carry the rock, they wouldn’t be able to go too far without raising suspicions, and going around with a massive rock must be trouble, they wouldn’t be able to go so far.

He pulled out his Styler with the map. His Styler emitting an orange glow instead of blue thanks to the new upgrade, he scrolled and dezoomed on his current area, looking for anything where a flying machine could be hidden at. He eventually found it, he couldn’t see it properly on the holo-map, but it looked like buildings big enough for an helicopter to land. There was no proof they were indeed there, but might as well check it out to be sure.

He stood up, and started sneaking around to the direction of the said building.

The walk was pretty long thanks to his slow pace, but the architecture quickly came into view, zigzagging in between trees and the like. He finally arrived at the buildings feet, in front in what looked like a backdoor. Nature had taken back its right and colonized the low parts of the structure.

The said backdoor was stuck under vines, but the Leafeon with him made quick work of it. As the Grass type was released the ranger held his hand out to the doorknob, only to realize that it’s stuck. But the united Tackles of the Eevees with him made also quick work of it.

Thanks to his Pokemon comrades he could enter the building, although only with Susan and Zio as all of his companions used their Field Move and were released. He gave a quick caress to Susan and the Joltik on the back of his head before pushing the door.

The place was _definitely_ _not_ abandoned.

Right as he entered, he noticed the clean walls and floor, completely contrasting with the exterior. Although the turned off lights and the presences of dozens of wooden boxes made him guess he was in some kind of reserve. He closed the door behind him and looked around, but he was quickly interrupted by a voice from the other side of the door at the other far end of the room.

“Hey what was that noise ?”

“Dunno, something must’ve fell down or something.”

It didn’t take a genius to realize those were probably Magatsu grunts. And it seems they brushed of the noises, which was good news, but now what must be done to leave ?

Yosuke’s job was to find out were they had taken the mossy rock and take it back. If he could _at least_ identify where it was in the building he would be satisfied. That is if the rock was here in the first place. And if it was Magatsu in the first place.

But in Yosuke’s heart it 100% was.

He looked around the vicinity for anything that could give him another option to advance to another room. He glanced at the walls and noticed a ventilation duct, a classic. With Susan’s help (mostly just Susan, thanks to her ridiculous strength), he pushed a crate beneath the duct and took out the duct grid. He could crawl in there but just before that he checked that Zio had moved somewhere else that his head so it wouldn’t get hurt if Yosuke were to hit the ceiling.

He jumped and crawled inside, and helped Susan by using his leg as something for her to grab on to get up there. The duct was dark, but Zio hidden on his chest beneath his ranger coat shined light using the static he accumulated, which wasn’t hard with the ranger unifrom’s fibers rubbing against the metal duct.

He eventually got to a grid letting him peeked on what was happening below said duct. A bunch of Magatsu grunts patrolling in some kind of corridor. The brunette moved to peek better and noticed that it’s not just some corridor, there was a railing and a gigantic open space dug into the ground.

The building was like a square with the floors and stairs following the walls, leaving a massive hole in the middle. Although from the angle he was he couldn’t see clearly if there was something in that hole, but it looked like some kind of lake. All he needed to know is that he better not be scared of heights. Now how is he going to find the mossy rock…

He shrugged. Time to listen in on grunts’ conversations and hoping it’s about his objective like some kind of stealth game.

He crawled inside the duct, following grunts for god knows how long and praying they will soon start talking about the important stuff.

Eventually, a goon mentioned a rock being on the higher floor, and that they will start to move it after a while. That was Yosuke’s cue to go higher.

While following the grunts there were parts of the duct that went straight up probably to higher floors. If Yosuke was careful enough he could try and “climb” inside. As much as trying to climb a smooth wall going straight up could look like.

He put his back to one side and the soles of his feet on the other, trying to slide up using his arms and legs without falling.

“Urgg…” He groaned. He knew he would need to do that multiple times to get to the top and the thought made him cringe. He felt his muscle tense as he crawled up, he could feel his thighs writhing in pain after the third duct he climbed.

“Ur- Nrrrggg…” He started panting and grunting, he could feel his shirt stick to him from sweat. He could also feel the two Pokemon in his clothing.

Both Zio and Susan crawled on Yosuke’s chest and looked at him with sad eyes and he kept climbing, carrying their weight with him. He noticed their gaze as he checked on one of his trembling legs.

“D- Don’t worry…” He panted. “I’ll… I’ll make it…”

Then he started sliding down, losing some height. The two Pokemon cried.

“It’s… It’s fine.” He murmured and focused.

Zio looked at Yosuke’s hands and feet, as if struck by an idea. And crawled to it. The little pitter patter of his paws and its tickles against the ranger’s skin made him chuckle, distracting him from the pain of crawling.

Zio put his mouth to his feet and spouted sticky secretion String Shot style onto it, making it stick better to the wall. He crawled to his hands and did the same.

The brunette tested the substance, he could still unstuck his limbs and stick it back, making it _much_ easier for him.

“Zio! You’re the MVP! Thanks!” He exclaimed. His limbs still stung and the secretion smelled like Gastro Acid, but he felt a rush of optimism.

The climbing was much less tiring, and he quickly attained a point he no longer saw anymore way up, he seemed to have reached the final floor.

Then it was time to leave the duct once and for all.

After checking there was no one in the room below him, he slid the grid off and jumped down. Once on the ground, he could dust himself off and take a breather, stretching a bit to try and brush away the pain.

He gave Zio some pats as a reward, and some for his Riolu for being brave. There would 100% be some styler fights up ahead, so they needed to be mentally prepared. The place just _smelled_ the pre-boss fight preparation room.

After taking a breather, Yosuke cautiously opened the door. As soon as it was slightly opened, he heard a massive sound, similar to a helicopter. Maybe the room was sound proof?

He was then out in a corridor, leading directly to a set of stairs seemingly going up to the rooftop. Yosuke glanced to the side, he saw the major hole, and indeed there was a lake in the middle, reflecting the light of the sun. It must’ve been a research facility.

Yosuke ran to the rooftop to try and maybe catch the helicopter or whoever was embarking on it.

He arrived under the harsh light of the sun, faced with a bright red helicopter and men in red, with admins embarking onto the helicopter. One of them had a different outfit than the others, even more fancy than the admins, the guy _screamed_ big boss. Though he couldn’t discern the man’s face because of his foglass, but he could at least see his dark hair.

Obviously all of the grunts on the rooftop were in alarm the second the copper ranger came into view, and all of them were already starting to get into positions.

One of their admins yelled out orders: “You, get into the Mega position! The rest, delay that brat!” He said before running to join the “Mega” formation, the rest were already tweaking their glasses and calling out to Pokemons.

A Fletchling, a Fletchindler and a Talonflame descended from the sky and attacked.

This was a difficult fight, the Fletchling wasn’t any trouble, but the two others would always break the lign, the Talonflame’s attacks were nothing to sneeze at either. The sense of urgency didn’t help either. Yosuke had to wait for them to charge their attacks or finish said attacks to capture them, or else their speed would make it basically impossible to capture while they were moving.

And obviously when he was finally done, the grunts were done too.

He heard another howl from the sky, the big boss spoke from his seat in the helicopter. “Guess what ranger?”

Yosuke felt awful after such a fight, so he didn’t hesitate in responding: “Try guessing yourself idiot!”

The boss scoffed. “Well I’ll “try” to make you taste defeat like the loser you are!” He pressed a button on his glasses.

Yosuke readied his styler as he inspected the sky. A Pokemon sent by the boss is bound to be very powerful. He picked up and clutched Susan after getting an awful chill down his spine.

“Oh sorry I said “defeat”?” Continued the Boss. “There will be no “defeat”.”

“What?”

He laughed. “After all, I won’t even _let you_ fight! I’ll take the express route!”

“What!?” Yosuke exclaimed as another howled pierced his ears.

Before he could even blink, the shadow of a massive bird Pokemon descended onto Yosuke. Of a beige color, hits of blue and yellow, and a long strand of red feathers…

A Mega Pidgeot.

But before Yosuke had even the time to react, he couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet, he saw the clear blue sky slowly filled with walls and stairs appearing in the corner of his eyes.

He immediately clutched Susan to his chest, feeling Zio against him and clutching him as well as the Pidgeot in the air became smaller and smaller in the distance.

He suddenly slammed into water before passing out.

* * *

Yosuke panted as he ran, holding Susan and Zio desperately holding on and trying to recharge his capstick.

It was raining and at night, he was having trouble running through the mud. He could hear the footsteps of his pursuers. Escaping in the first place was already too close, finding his capstick not broken a miracle, and capturing with it even more. He wouldn't be able to make it if he gets captured again.

So all he can do was run.

He didn’t even know where he was going, all he just moved his legs trying to get some place safer, ignoring his view starting to blur under the water and exhaustion.

He needed to get out. Not for his sake, but for Susan’s and Zio’s.

He tried to think, what would partner do at a time like this? Would he run too? No, Yu is too good to even be captured in the first place…

Yosuke tripped on something he honestly didn’t care what it was. His face met with the mud, trying to protect Susan in his arms and Zio in his jacket in priority, and he got up.

Or at least he wanted to, but his arms and legs refused to respond.

“M- Move…” He begged. He only twitched in response.

He heard from behind him: “Hey! I think he’s over here!”

He kept twitching and trying to crawl. “Dammit- move..!” His fingers clutched in the mud, he didn’t hear his partner Pokemons sadly cry under the loud pitter patter of the rain. “Move!” The sounds of footsteps got closer and closer.

Yosuke choked back tears.

“Susan… Zio… just run…” He felt the stares of his companions on him. “Just get out… leave me here…”

The two creatures jumped off of him and went in front of his face in the dirt. Susan touched his face to try and reassure him.

“Just leave! Or you guys will be in danger! Please just leave!”

The stares he received in return told him they didn’t want to do so.

“Just leave me here… go find Yu... he’ll be a better partner than me... I’m sure…” He could feel himself starting to faint.

A grunt yelled. “I found him! Catch him now!”

“Run… please…” He begged them.

On the brink of fainting, he felt so disappointed at himself. Getting greedy, getting caught, being unable to protect Susan and Zio… he was such a disappointment.

Everyone used to call him that at Ranger school, wasting his potential by making small errors, and always comparing his scores and attitude to Yu, like if he was a superior being.

But Yu never called him a disappointment. When someone would call him that, Yu would always bite back, even against teachers. And that’s all Yosuke needed. His acknowledgment is all he ever wanted.

But he wasn’t even able to accomplish his mission, put his partner Pokemons in danger, and was lamentably crawling in mud under the rain.

Such a disappointment.

“Partner… you guys... I’m… so sorry…”

Before his consciousness could melt away however… a massive blue light engulfed his vision. He swore he saw that type of light before. He heard Susan let out a cry, said cry resonated through and changed towards the end, a rougher tone and more determined.

Once the blue light had disappeared, Susan wasn’t in sight anymore. The tiny Riolu wasn’t in sight, Yosuke had to lift his eyes to recognize the new form she had taken on. She was taller, stronger, she wasn’t a Riolu anymore.

“What the-!?” He heard the man say behind him.

Susan let another cry, and focused energy in her paws to create an Aura Sphere, the signature move of a Lucario. She threw the sphere at her enemies. Yosuke could feel the ground shake, and plenty of mud and light covering the environment.

“I- can’t see!” He heard the men yell some more.

Zio jumped and hanged onto Yosuke and the ranger suddenly felt picked up off the ground and transported. He felt a warm aura surrounding him, making him feel safe and at ease, like he was being hugged or cradled to sleep...

It was with a reassuring feeling that his eyes closed and his consciousness faded away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke Faints The Chapter  
> YES WE ARE DOING ANGST LETS GO  
> I hope you enjoyed that evolution, since Riolus evolve with love and care ya know... And I liked what i did with Zio, a partner that regerates your health with your static electricity and mouvements sounds like it could be a neat idea for a partner in game!  
> I really hope I'm nourishing some mystery or something of those lines, I want people to be curious about wtf is going on with the Magatsu squad but i dont think im doing a very good job at it hujdhfcdj  
> Anyways I hope you enjoyed!


	6. Lore Bore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke goes to a temple in the desert for a specific objective, and learns more about Legends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats this  
> a chapter released one day after the other?  
> the stars must be aligned hjfdbhvdjf

Yosuke replaced his scarf on his face and readjusted his goggles as he perceived a temple in the distance.

He sensed Garula and Zio moving in his jacket. He apologized to them for having to endure the sandstorm. If he had brought Susan she would have been able to endure the harsh weather with her Steel type, but she was still exhausted from her evolution and desperate escape from the forest incident.

He couldn’t thank her enough for saving his hide that day, so she deserved some rest. She needed to get used to her new form as well and her better attunement to people's auras.

He also heard that Lucarios knows telepathy. It could turn very weird if she started talking in his head…

While Susan and Yosuke were resting and healing, Yu was appointed to handle the Mossy rock mission in Yosuke’s stead. Some higher ups voiced their disappointment to him while he was in hospital bed, but Yu, who didn’t leave his side until he got better, would always stare them off and reassure him.

Just thinking about it sent Butterfrees in Yosuke’s stomach.

He hurried through the sand towards the old temple, the boots Chie gave him keeping it from leaking to his feet. The temple made of rock was built inside a cliff. When he passed through the entrance and was safe from the storm, he took a breather and released Garula from his grip. Zio got out of his jacket to stick to his back, both Pokemon then shook to get rid of the sand on their fur.

He dusted himself as well and took his goggles off. He looked at his styler for the map of the temple, it started simple enough, a straight line on a rocky pathway with sand on both sides, leading to a dark creepy entrance. Definitely fitting for what he was searching for.

And so, he started walking with Garula through the ruins.

On the walls were scriptures in a language too damaged for Yosuke to undersatnd, but there were pictures that were much more understandable.

It seemed to be a story of a pokemon with rings opening holes, and giant creatures getting out of them. It looked like some kind of cataclysm.

It seemed to be the start of the tale of Hoopa, he remembered telling that tale as a bedtime story to Ted. A Pokemon named Hoopa had the power to jump from dimensions and spaces to one another with its rings, creating a cataclysm when this power went out of control, summoning legendaries from all over. Someone had sealed away most of its power within some kind of artefact, now Hoopa is just your usual mischievous Pokemon pulling pranks.

He  _ really _ wonders why Ted liked that story so much.

And as he advanced through the temple… and traps… lots of traps… the story seemed to be accurate to the myth.

One picture got his attention… It was the image of a massive Legendary. There were some faint colors left on the stone, it seemed to depict a giant white Pokemon emerging from the sea. He could swear he saw it before.

A giant white Pokemon from the sea that controlled the wind… Magatsu were hanging out ruins in the sea too. Maybe was it the ruins of that Legendary?

Now that he gave it more thought, was the legendary Lugia? The guardian of the seven seas? He remembers Yu saying that Legendaries don’t usually show up unless something really bad happened or will happen, or find someone worthy of their friendship. But it still showed up back then… Why?

This sudden breakthrough of thought distracted him, and he didn’t realize a trap activated, and the ground suddenly grumbled under him.

“ _ AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!???? _ ” He yelled as he fell, feeling a strong sense of déjà-vu. In his fall, he grabbed and clutched his partners to his chest to protect them, he was getting ready to fall on his back…

But it never came. Some force softly lowered him on the ground, making him land on his feet.

He put Garula down and Zio lit the area when Yosuke snapped his fingers, their signal. He was in the middle of a dark room, and it seemed there were statues of Bronzors surrounding him.

Oh. It moved.

They aren’t statues.

Yosuke readied his styler for the capture. The four Bronzors did their usual, spinning while throwing psychic attacks and the occasional Steel attack. The capture was nevertheless pretty easy even if they were in numbers.

Once done, the copper ranger took another breath.

“What was that noise?” The brunette heard further in the distance.

Yosuke made the signal for Zio to turn off the light, as well for every Pokemon, including the newly caught Bronzors to hide in the corner of the room.

As his gut instincts told him, a light came closer, the Flash of a controlled Baltoy with two men in red. Magatsu grunts.

He knew it. Magatsu had an interest in ruins for a long time now, they probably have their sight on the same thing Yosuke came for.

They walked past him. The brunette was thrown in yet another stealth mission. He waited until they left, and Yosuke got up and ran towards the direction they had left. He snuck around the corner and snapped his fingers, Zio lit the room, and once again, Yosuke saw scriptures on the walls.

It expanded on the tale of Hoopa, by that it showed more about the legendaries summoned during the cataclysm.

The three Legendary Birds… The Legendary Dogs… The Golems… but two caught his attention specifically.

They were similar to dragons, but their wings were like jets, even if the colors were faint, he could see that their neck was white. One red and one blue.

He quickly connected the dots. It looked like the Pokemons that came to defend him and Yu back then. Having finally a full image to look at, he easily recognized the Pokemons.

Latios and Latias, the eon guardians. He heard tales of those Pokemons living for said eons on end and flying through the world at breakneck speed.

Although, why would they show up? And protect him and Yu? He needed to do research about this once he got back to base, and tell his partner about it obviously! But for now, he has other things to do.

Good thing Yosuke was so agile, he kept leaping from one corner to another to avoid detection. He gave a phew pats to Garula and Zio for being able to keep up, both with the mouvements and the lighting.

He eventually noticed that the grunts were going in a specific direction, maybe they had a breakthrough in their search and discovered something important.

He silently followed the men, they were easy to spot thanks to their controlled Pokemon using Flash to show the way. The jerks were too lazy to bring their own freaking flashlight. Sure Zio was doing technically the same thing, but it was of his own volition! There is consent in this Flash relationship!

A huge light was shining around a corner as multiple Pokemon combined their lights. Yosuke peeked, and was faced with one giant scripture.

Grunts were gathered around it, looking and probably studying it, obscuring the bottom of the pictures.

It depicted a giant dragon Pokemon with a body of grey and black, red at the tip of its big black claw like wings, multiple pairs of legs with golden claws and jaw. There was another similar scripture on the other end of the room, it was similar to the said dragon Pokemon, except it didn’t have legs anymore but multiple thick string like wings. It also seemed to have some kind of shiny rock, and the scenery surrounding it seemed dark and nonsensical, like another world. Was it the Pokemon’s power? Yosuke could swear he saw it before… it’s name was on the tip of his tongue…

“Look! Ranger!” The brunette heard as a light was shined onto him. Once again, getting too distracted got him caught.

The said light gave him an idea. He then gave the order for the four Bronzors to come forward, and shine a bright light on the mass of red grunts. Yosuke turned around to flee as the men were blinded and released the Bronzors.

Now the challenge was to run away. He turned sharply at corners and tried to think of a good place to hide, or maybe lure the red army after him into a trap.

But obviously with Yosuke’s luck, he ran into a dead end. It was a picture of the Golems, with letters written in braille, the points on the golems faces were reflecting the light. The copper ranger remembered learning some basics of braille, just in case a blind person would need help with something, as well as the mythos of the Golems.

He passed his fingers across the bumps, trying to recognize it. All he understood is something about “light” and “pressing onward” or something along those lines.

Maybe pressing on the lights?

Yosuke poked at the points made out of gems on the scriptures, it seemed the center gem of one of the golems face clicked. He proceeded to press the center of the others as the sound of footsteps drew closer.

Once he finished, a stone to his feet moved out of the way, leaving room for him to escape if he simply ducked down. He signaled garula to go first, before going in as well, and the stone replaced itself after his passage, making it seem he disappeared without a trace around the corner.

As he half crawled through the passage, he thought of the fact the Golems were all artificially created by human hands. It would make sense a human made trap would be located at scripture symbolizing human made life. Not a specifically useful thought, but he seemed to be fond of getting lost in thought today.

Then he heard another click, and the form moved to form a ramp under him, making him slide down. With a surprised yelp, he ended up in an ominous room.

It formed a giant circle, scriptures on the walls around, light only shining down from above at the center of the room, and under that beam was some kind of vase.

The vase was of a twisted gray, a hole in the middle, and a pink spike atop of it that even had black horns on both sides. It looked like sharp strands of hair.

It didn’t take very long for Yosuke to figure out this was what he was searching for, the Prison Bottle. The urn that sealed away Hoopa’s power. The Federation wanted to take it in custody, to study it of course, but more importantly, to keep it from falling into Magatsu’s hands.

For caution, Yosuke looked around. The scriptures depicted a berserk Pokemon throwing rings and summoning Legendaries. The language here was much more well conserved, and it seemed to be written in Unown. It told the end of Hoopa’s tale, how its power was sealed away in the artefact.

Yosuke cautiously got closer to the urn, until he felt something tugging at his leg.

Garula was pulling on his sock, probably trying to dissuade him from getting close to it. He hesitated. He needed to get his hands on it, but his gut instinct told him this object was bad news. Maybe he could just find another way to transport it?

Something obscured the light shining down the artefact. The brunette looked up, and he perceived a Darmanitan in Zen mode, descending onto the ground in between himself and the bottle.

Expecting a capture, he put his hand on his styler. But the Psychic type didn’t move, it only stared at Yosuke. Maybe it was waiting for him to make a move? The brunette could feel the stare into his soul, the Pokemon’s dead fish eyes didn’t help either.

Before Yosuke could make sense of what was happening, a massive blast blew him away with a loud noise. One glance, and he saw Magatsu grunts entering the room for a newly formed hole in the wall.

Recovering from the blast and making sure Zio and Garula was ok, he perceived and heard the admin ordering the grunts to get their hands on the Prison Bottle. Although, it seemed like the Darmannitan wasn’t going to have any of this, and used Psychic to push the men away. But a possessed Sableye, immune to Psychic attacks thanks to his Dark type, attacked the other Pokemon, giving the opportunity for criminals to get their hands on the vase.

Yosuke struggled up and ran towards the knocked out Fire type, trying to think of a way to stop Magatsu from harming it more and getting away with the bottle, but suddenly, the urn started to shine.

The ominous light blinded Yosuke and the underlings, and when it had ended, the Darmanitan was no longer in Zen mode, and it looked even more infuriated than it probably was supposed to be. It was like it was possessed by the dark power of the artefact.

It wasted no time in knocking out the Sableye that attacked it, and was about to throw a Fire Punch towards the grunt holding the Prison Bottle, but before he could hit, the grunt was carried away by an possessed Aerodactyl, flying and escaping into the hole of light.

The other grunts ran and laughed. “YOU deal with it Mister Hero!” They mocked on their way out.

Yosuke wanted to insult them back so badly for running under his noses with the objective, but then a punch destroyed the ground as he dodged to the side, making him very aware of the threat in front of him. He needed to calm it down before it destroyed the whole ruins and Yosuke, Zio, and Garula with it.

That capture was on another level than what he was usually going against, since it didn’t hesitate to attack him or Garula.

He would often duck and dash towards her to protect her from an incoming attack, and it definitely left a few burns on his legs, nothing that can’t be healed but it still stung, slowly slowing him down more and more as the fight went out. And from Zio’s and Garula’s cries, he probably didn’t look too good.

Although, it was also an advantage, as it was easily distracted by anything and everything, making it easy to stack a lot of circles around it.

When the fight was finished, the Fire type went back into Zen mode. Yosuke was barely standing, as his legs were about to give out under the burns and exhaustion.

Garula rubbed her cheek against an injury above his ankle, and Zio was trying to patch a little cut on his neck with strings.

The Darmanitan was looking at him with an apologetic look. Yosuke waved his hand.

“It’s fine… don’t worry about it.” He tried to reassure it.

Before collapsing.

“Again..? I’ll have to train more when I get home…” He groaned on the ground. Zio was still trying to patch him up, and Garula was licking his face to try and cheer him up. He reached out to his styler to call for Rise, and maybe some help, but he quickly realized he was underground, and so couldn’t send a message or communicate.

Then he started to be lifted off the ground.

“Wh-!?” He exclaimed. Garula and Zio were lifted with him, Yosuke saw that the Darmanitan was lifting him up through the hole at the top of the room. “Oh. Thanks buddy! I swear I’ll get it back!”

The Fire type let out a calm cry in agreement, and Yosuke and his partners disappeared into the light.

* * *

Again in a hospital room with bandages around his limbs, he was petting Garula asleep on him as his other partners were sleeping as well, except Zio who was hanging out on a free electrical outlet.

There was a knock on the door, and Yu quickly came in.

“Yosuke!” He exclaimed. He quickly saw the bunch of bandages the brunette was wrapped in. He was silent but he was clearly sad.

Yosuke waved his hand. “Don’t worry bro. It’ll heal up, and you know that type of stuff happens all the time on the job!”

“You’re right… but…” He breathed out.

Yosuke sighed. “Yeah I would rather not get hurt. That’s why I’m gonna train my ass off once I’m out of here!” He claimed, trying to be as optimistic as possible.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” Asked the silver ranger.

The brunette smiled and laughed. “Of course dude! You’re always welcome bro!” As he finished his sentence Izanagi jumped on the bed and fell asleep next to his sister.

“Yosuke, I have other things to talk to you about.” Yu said in a more professional tone.

Getting the message, Yosuke switched on his serious mode too. “Ok, I’m all ears.”

“Well…”

Yu then proceeded to explain what he had found during his mission. From the documents he found in the building in the forest, it seemed that Magatsu was researching a Pokemon called Celebi, the Time Traveler. And they took the mossy rock in trying to find clues about it, it seems it didn’t work though. And Yu got the rock back anyway.

Both Hoopa and Celebi have the common point of being travelers, one of time and one of space. They maybe set their sights on Hoopa after having failed to get any clues about Celebi.

“But… Why would they research  _ these _ Pokemon in particular?” Yosuke pondered.

“That is the question isn’t it… Travelers of time and space, maybe it’s connected to the Legendaries of time and space, Dialga and Palkia.”

It reminded Yosuke of something, and suddenly a streak of genius hit him. “OH THAT'S IT!” He exclaimed.

Yu jumped back. “What’s it?”

“In the ruins! Magatsu was studying that specific scriptures of a Legendary! I remember it was Giratina! The third in the space time trio!” He claimed, happy of having made the connection.

Yu looked up in thought. “Mh. So they have interest in the Distortion Pokemon…”

They both pondered on why. Did they want its power? What were their plans with its power? And why stole the Prison Bottle in the first place?

Yosuke rubbed his hair in frustration. “Dammit! Why can’t I be smarter!?”

Yu chuckled. “You’re already plenty smart Yosuke.”

The brunette sighed. “Yeah right!”

“I mean it.” He said in a surprisingly sincere tone.

The way Yu was staring at him right in the eyes made Yosuke feel like he was hit with a Flamethrower attack. Or Attract.

He quickly scrambled to change the subject. “Oh yeah! Remember the Pokemon that saved us way back in the tornado? The blue and red?”

Yu nodded.

“I think it was Latios and Latias! I saw a scripture of them and it hit me!”

The silver teen was wide eyed for a second, thought about it, and nodded again. “You’re right… now that I think about it it  _ does _ seem like them. They are powerful enough to block this attack, the colors and looks match too…”

“But why would they help us?” He wondered as he pet Garula still asleep.

Yu shrugged with his shoulder. “I can’t figure it out with just this information. But it seems we have guardian angels- or  _ dragons _ in this case.”

The brunette raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I said I remembered seeing the blue one before right? I think it helped me before, but it was so fast I didn’t get a clear look at him.”

Him? Oh right, Latios has an actual gender. Rare for a legendary.

Yu continued. “I also remember… that Latias can hide her presence by using the light to become invisible thanks to her fluff.” 

Her? Oh right, Latias has a gender too. But that’s not the moment to get distracted.

“Now that I think about it…” He took a breath. “I think it’s her that saved you back when you saved Susan as an egg.”

A dot lit in Yosuke’s brain.

“Holy crap- You’re right! It fits! The speed, the invisibility… Holy crap we really do have guardian dragons!”

The silver teen chuckled again. “We are indeed lucky. Hopefully we will learn why they would go that far to protect us.”

“Yep. But for now I’ll just be happy I have a legendary on my side. Although I have no idea why they would want to be on my side.”

Yu deadpanned: “I would want to be on your side.”

Yosuke choked on his breath and his face burned. “Y-yeah, we’re partners after all right?”

Yu smiled. “Yeah.”

Yosuke lifted his hand, and the sound of their high five resonated through the room, probably waking up all of the Pokemons in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this fic is just Yosuke FallsTM  
> I wonder if you guys connected some dots before i revealed some of this stuff! I know Pokemon lore was probably not why everyone was in for hujfdvhfdk theres a reason I called the chapter like this. I just hope you guys werent too bored jdjnjvbhdk I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
